It was revealed Sunday that softball and baseball were not on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) agenda in Turin, dashing the sports’ hopes of being reinstated as Olympic sports for the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
The only chance the two sports have for readmission to the London 2012 program after being axed from the Olympic list last year is if IOC members vote them back at the IOC session in Turin next week. But IOC director of communications Giselle Davies said Sunday that the readmission of baseball and softball was not on the agenda for discussion when the members met.
Under the IOC’s charter, the decision in Singapore to drop the two sports cannot be overturned by the Executive Board. But if one third of IOC members were in agreement they could still introduce a motion at next week’s session. That motion would have to be accepted by half the members present and there would then be a new vote to admit the sports to the Games program.
Meanwhile Anita DeFrantz, former IOC vice president, told reporters Monday that she would be rallying her fellow members to restore softball, reports Reuters.
She said, “I am going to raise this as someone who cares about the Olympic program. My gut feeling is we should do this…and I like to win. I think (if softball were readmitted) it would be a win for the IOC too”.
IOC President Jacques Rogge said Monday that if IOC members don’t vote the sport back in at the February 8-10 session in Turin it would be too late for it to be featured in London.
Meanwhile the IOC Executive Board has made decisions after reviewing requests from several International Federations to increase their quotas for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. For Fencing there will be an increase of 12 athletes – three individual places for each of the four team events. Modern Pentathlon will have its quota increased by four additional men and four more women. Following the introduction of Oceania as a new region the World Taekwondo federation requested a quota increase by two men and two women to balance the attribution of quote places across continents, and the request was granted.
In Triathlon the Executive Board will increase its quota by five additional men and five women, although the original request was to have 25 more men and 25 women. In Cycling where there were two BMX events introduced, the Executive Board agreed to a potential increase of about 20 athletes (depending on the number of double starter athletes) made possible following the withdrawal of two track events.
There will now be an 128 additional female athletes in the Beijing 2008 Games.
