IOC puts off decision on ditching sports

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) postponed a vote on dropping modern pentathlon, softball and baseball from the Olympics on Friday following emotional pleas by the leaders of the three sports.

After debating a controversial report on scaling down the Olympic programme for the 2008 Beijing Games which proposed the exclusion of the three sports, an IOC session decided to put off any final decision until after the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The IOC has not thrown a sport out of the Games since 1936. In a 2 1/2 hour-debate the majority of members said the organisation needed more time to study the issue in detail before making a final ruling.

The decision means that it will be impossible for new sports to join the 28-sport programme in the near future. The IOC had been considering adding rugby union sevens and golf to the Games but had already announced that it would only add a sport if the session decided to drop others from the programme.

But it also means that a cloud will hang over the three sports in the next two years which could affect their relationships with sponsors and also influence youth development.

"If you leave an uncertainty, our life is made difficult ahead with sponsors and developing kids," said Juan Antonio Samaranch, the son of the former IOC president with the same name and a leading modern pentathlon official.

SCALE DOWN

IOC president Jacques Rogge has pledged to scale down the Games after decades of expansionism under his predecessor Juan Antonio Samaranch because he is worried that the Games are getting too large and expensive to manage. But pushing through radical changes will be hard for the former surgeon.

Rogge said the IOC session had nevertheless decided to review the programme every four years -- straight after the Games.

Asked about the uncertainty hanging over the three sports, the former Olympic yachtsman said: "People forget about the millions of athletes whose sports are outside of the Olympic programme. I feel sympathetic but when you consider the rugby players and golf players. They want to be part of the Games and today they cannot.

"The question is: 'Don't we have sports outside that deserve better to be in the programme?'"

An IOC Olympic programme report published in August said baseball and softball were very popular in certain countries but said the popularity was not reflected throughout entire regions or continents. It said there was a lack of global participation by nations and athletes in modern pentathlon because it was expensive to practice.

The report caused a huge controversy and led to intense lobbying by the three sports and an intense debate on Friday when none of the members backed the immediate exclusion of the sports.

Modern pentathlon is one of the oldest disciplines at the Games and first made an appearance at the 1912 Olympics. The sport lives from its place in the Olympics. Softball and baseball are popular in countries such as the U.S. and Japan where many of the IOC's main sponsors are based.

OLYMPIC DREAM

The heads of the three sports made emotional presentations to the session.

International Softball Federation (ISF) president Don Porter invited Croatia player Geleno Tomic to address the meeting. She stressed the importance of softball, which was introduced in 1996, in bringing more women to the Games, one of the IOC's key objectives.

"Women have come a long way in the Olympics. To take away that dream (of taking part in the Games) from so many girls is the same as banning women from all sports in the Olympics, " she said.

International Modern Pentathlon president Klaus Schormann said his sport had been created by the founder of the Games, Pierre de Coubertin, and argued it was not an expensive sport.

"Destroying modern pentathlon would take the heart out of the Olympic soul. Without being on the Olympic programme modern pentathlon would not survive," he said. "Don't send us to the Olympic Museum."

No changes in the programme are planned for the Athens Games in 2004.

Friday's decision mean the IOC's ruling executive board will be focusing its attention on cutting disciplines from other sports in the next few months to find other ways of scaling down the Games.

The report suggested radical steps such as scratching disciplines such as racewalking and equestrian events. Events in badminton, rowing, canoeing, yachting and synchronised swimming are among the other disciplines in danger.