The Associated Press reports that former International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch has agreed to serve as an honorary chairman of a task force formed to regain Olympic status for women’s softball, the International Softball Federation (ISF) said Thursday.
The IOC voted the sport out of the Olympics starting with the London 2012 Games.
ISF President Don Porter said, “obviously we continue to feel very strongly that softball should still be an Olympic sport beyond the 2008 Games. The task force is going to be made up of people that will be able to help us convince the IOC of that, and having the former president as honorary chairman can only bolster the efforts of the group”.
The ISF hopes softball will return to the Olympics in 2009 when the IOC votes on the 2016 Olympic program.
Baseball was also eliminated from the 2012 program and it is also seeing reinstatement for 2016.
