The International World Games Association announced in May that disc golf will be a medal sport at Chengdu 2025.

It will be the first time the discipline governed by the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has been included since Akita 2001.

Charlie Mead, the founding President of the WFDF, who is chair of the organisation’s Disc Golf Committee, described the sport’s return to the World Games as the "icing on the cake".

"When WFDF entered the World Games, we had ultimate and disc golf both playing but for whatever reason disc golf was dropped," Mead said.

"I am not sure why but it has been really difficult to get it back.

"I was brought back in 2016 by President Robert Rauch to address that and we have done it."

Disc golf uses a similar process to golf in which players complete a hole by throwing a disc from a tee pad toward a target, known as a basket.

Players throw again from where the previous disc landed until the target is reached before going on to the next hole.

Chengdu 2025 will see disc golf comprise of 16 nations competing in a mixed pairs competition involving 32 players.

Mead said World Games inclusion was "just the beginning" for disc golf as he looks to push the sport’s case for a place at the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.

A new mixed-gender "Ultimate4’s" discipline of flying disc had been proposed by the WFDF to be added to the sport programme for Los Angeles 2028.

But the WFDF’s hopes were dashed when it was revealed last year that it had failed to make the nine-strong list of sports still in the race to feature at the Games.

Rauch told yesterday’s Congress that the governing body would "persist" in its pursuit of Olympic inclusion and Mead believes disc golf could be the answer.

"Personally, yes I absolutely do [think it can make the Olympics]," said Mead.

"I am going to get an argument from the ultimate athletes but everyone who knows me would expect nothing less.

"I will push for the impossible even if they don’t think it is possible.

"We had a long discussion when we failed to get into LA.

"After 12 to 15 years of pushing to get ultimate in and not doing it in the country in which it was invented, why don’t we push for disc golf instead?

"The argument didn’t last very long because we are focused on the World Games which we got.

"It’s probably worth a tilt as we are now in the World Games now and I think we need to make a bigger impact worldwide."

Mead admitted that the lack of presence of disc golf in Africa might hinder its hopes of becoming an Olympic discipline but insisted that it had been experiencing great growth since the COVID-19 pandemic.

"One of the consequences of COVID was that disc golf became incredibly popular as it is very COVID friendly," said Mead.

"You don’t share equipment and keep your distances.

"A lot of players who play ultimate switched to disc golf because they couldn’t play ultimate as you share equipment and can’t run around marking each other.

"Our membership quadrupled across Britain in that time and has stabled."

Mead believes that disc golf’s popularity in Australia could also boost its chances of featuring at Brisbane 2032.

"Disc golf is really big in Australia so who knows?" added Mead.

"If you have a headline ‘disc golf makes bid for Brisbane’, there will be quite a few people who will fall over laughing but that’s because they don’t recognise how important disc golf is to the whole development of disc sport worldwide.

"If disc golf was in the Olympics, it would be the pinnacle."