The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee has announced climbing is one of five sports it has proposed be added to the program for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad.

President of the Western Victoria Climbing Club Lisa Somerfield said she expected the announcement and upcoming 2015 Australian Boulder Climbing Championships in Ballarat would increase the amount of young people taking up the sport in the region.

“It will be really interesting for our club because we have probably had an older demographic for a really long time and just the last six months we’ve had a big influx of young climbers,” she said.

“(With Olympic inclusion) you can show what you can actually do with the sport and where it can take you – it’s going to be very exciting.”

Australian Boulder Climbing Championships event organiser Naomi Benjamin said her daughter Emily – an elite young climber from Ballarat – would be thrilled with the news.

“There’s a number of elite athletes in Victoria that are training hard and competing overseas already in that age bracket of 18-30. It’s very exciting for all of them,” she said.

“It gives (Emily) a great goal to work towards the 2020 Olympics in the future. It’s great to be able to know that your training is leading to such a goal and it’s a symbol that everybody understands. Even people that don’t know about sports climbing, they know how elite the Olympics are and it’s great for them to have that to help us explain to people how serious the sport is.”

A baseball/softball joint bid, karate, skateboarding and surfing have also been proposed to the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in 2020.

The Tokyo organisers narrowed down their previous list by dropping bowling, squash and wushu, a type of martial art.

Fujio Mitarai, chairman of the committee for selecting new sports, said it picked the five sports as they are popular among younger generations and have wide support in Japan.

The Australian Boulder Climbing Championships will be held at Ballarat’s Prince of Wales Park between October 9-11.