I was on a Skype call with Becky in Austin, Texas and told her that I needed to ring off so that I could make it to my weekly game of padel. Becky said that for all my talk about padel, she couldn’t believe that it was actually classified as a sport if people didn’t even play it in the USA. I assured Becky that not only was padel played in the USA, but Austin had two padel clubs.
Is padel classified as a sport? Padel is certainly classified as a sport. In fact, padel is played on all six continents and in almost enough countries to be able to apply for Olympic status. Padel has an international professional circuit called the World Padel Tour structured similar to the ATP and WTA in tennis.
There is certainly a whole lot that padel needed to do in order to be officially classified as a sport on the world stage. So let’s unpack all of that in a whole lot more detail.
Millions Of Players Across All Continents
Padel is undergoing massive expansion and growth worldwide.
At the start of 2017 published data showed an estimated 8 million padel players worldwide with 250.000 new players joining the sport during 2016. At that stage, there were 31 national federations registered with the International Padel Federation. A further statistic was that a staggering nine hundred thousand padel rackets were sold during 2016.
During mid-2019 the Irish Padel Federation released some new data when the total number of padel players worldwide passed the ten million mark. In Argentina, padel has grown to the level that it is the second biggest sport in that country after football (soccer).
At the end of 2019, there were 36 national federations registered with the International Padel Federation representing countries on all six continents (not counting Antarctica).
Suitable For All Ages
Padel is a game that is suitable for almost all ages. Because the court is relatively small and the ball can be played off the walls it means that with fairly low levels of skill it becomes possible to have longer rallies. This adds to the enjoyment level right from the first day you try out the sport.
What’s more, padel is good aerobic exercise and has a calorie burn rate close to that of squash due to the longer rallies.
For those of us that are a bit older and maybe not quite in as good shape as we once were (I include myself here), we can enjoy playing padel because at a casual level it isn’t a huge strain because we play doubles on the small court. Also, the AstroTurf courts are easier on the joints than hard-surface tennis courts.
World Padel Tour
The World Padel Tour (WPT) is the international circuit of elite professional padel tournaments. The WPT fulfills the same role as both the WTA and ATP in tennis. The WPT maintains the calendar of sanctioned professional tournaments and ensures that these tournaments are presented to a uniformly high standard.
The World Padel Tour is also responsible for maintaining the player ranking list through the season.
The 2019 edition of the World Padel Tour consisted of 23 tournaments concentrated in South America and Europe that began with the opening Round of the Alicante Master Tournament on 19 March 2019 and ended with the WPT Master Final in Barcelona that finished on 22 December 2019.
First Steps Towards Becoming An Olympic Sport
The sport of padel has begun the process of working towards being an Olympic sport.
The first step in the process of becoming an Olympic sport is the recognition as an international sport by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). At that stage, the international federation of that sport must adhere to WADA guidelines including out of competition testing of athletes. Padel has completed this step.
Once this is done the sport gets observer status at the Association of IOC Recognized International Sport (ARISF). This allows the sport to be monitored by the ARISF as it completes the remaining requirements to have full ARISF status and apply to be a sport at the Olympic games.
On 13 September 2019, the International Padel Federation received a letter from the ARISF confirming that padel has ARISF observer status.
The first of the remaining two steps are that the sport must be played by me on at least 4 continents and by men on at least three continents by women. Padel has registered federations in countries on six continents for women and men so that step has already been met.
The second and final step is that the sport needs to be played by men in 75 countries and by women in 40 countries. At the time of writing, padel has registered national federations for women and men in 38 different countries. So the requirements for women’s padel to be fully IOC recognized is almost complete, but the men’s game still has a way to go.
The process of selecting new sports for the Olympic Games starts during the year after an edition of the Olympic Games and lasts 7 years. So the earliest that padel might make it into the Olympic Games is 2032.
