Softball players aim to impress IOC leaders this week in Switzerland
The leaders of seven sports hoping to join the Olympic program are in Lausanne, Switzerland this week making key presentations to the IOC .
All seven candidates – baseball, golf, karate, roller sports, rugby sevens, softball and squash – are seeking a place at the games from 2016 onward after being rejected by International Olympic Committee members in 2005.
Olympic softball player (and current WSF president) Jessica Mendoza is joined in Switzerland by Michele Smith and other international softball athletes to make the case to reinstate the sport.
She’s confident the IOC will make the right decision but implores everyone to visit www.backsoftball.com to show their support.
For more background on the IOC decision to drop softball in the first place, Women Talk Sports has just posted a great podcast with sports journalist Christine Brennan discussing the Olympic Committee’s decisions to remove Softball from the Olympic Summer Program in the first place as well as its refusal to add women’s Ski Jumping to the Winter program. In the interview, Brennan states, “Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, is in danger of having his legacy…be that he did more damage to women’s sports than any IOC President.”
There are a number of other sports hoping to make it into the games as well. Squash and karate were closest to Olympic status four years ago, after baseball and softball were voted out of the 2012 London Games.
Both advanced past golf, roller sports and rugby sevens in successive rounds of voting, but finally fell short of the required two-thirds tally of IOC members.
Hoping to bolster golf’s bid, Annika Sorenstam also arrived in Lausanne to plead the case for her sport.
World Karate Federation president Antonio Espinos said his federation had worked hard since Singapore to improve its marketing and appeal.
No votes will be cast Monday when each of the sports gets a 45-minute slot to impress the Executive Board. All 15 members, led by President Jacques Rogge, have received a report from the program commission which vetted the seven last November and attended major events.
The board meets again in August at Berlin to choose two from seven that will go before the full IOC membership for approval at their October session in Copenhagen. Voting rules have changed and a place on the program awaits either or both shortlisted sports which get a simple majority.
The IOC wants sports with universal appeal, which will not burden a host city with added costs and have a proven record fighting doping.
International Softball Federation president Don Porter said his sport would support the Olympic movement’s values.
“The ISF has made tremendous progress in the last few years, pushing forward our vision of a clean, inclusive, and accessible sport that enriches the lives of tens of millions of people around the world” Porter said.
Baseball suffered four years ago from a perception that the major leagues were slow to embrace drug testing and could not deliver top players to the games. Its presentation team Monday includes Donald Fehr, leader of the Major League Baseball players’ union, and Jean-Pierre Moser, anti-doping manager for the International Baseball Federation.
Squash proposes to play in mobile glass courts it will donate to the host, and has secured pledges from top-ranked men and women players that an Olympic medal would be the sport’s highest honor.
“We feel that we fit the bill for the IOC’s requirements” said World Squash Federation president N. Ramachandran.
Karate and squash will point to having world champions from all continents.
“We estimate to have 100 million supporters and we always have full venues at our events” World Karate Federation president Antonio Espinos said. “Karate can be organized in any venue of the sports already on the program.”
The IOC is said to prefer adding one individual and one team sport, which could favor rugby sevens after it scored well with program commission observers at its World Cup event in March.
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