Following high level talks in Lausanne with International Olympic Committee (IOC) head Jacques Rogge, International Softball Federation president Don Porter told Reuters Tuesday that “it’s not too late to get on to the London program”.
He said, “we had a very positive meeting, a good discussion. There is a possibility we could still make the London Olympics. The door is open that in Turin the IOC members could reconsider their decision to wipe us from the program”.
Softball and baseball were dropped from the Olympics in a controversial vote at the IOC’s session last July in Singapore to become the first sports to be cut from the Games since polo in 1936, reports Reuters.
Porter told Reuters that softball had missed out by one vote. “The score was 52-52 with one abstention. That’s terrible when you start to think about it…to go out by just one vote”.
But he added they have to do a better job in getting the support of the IOC members and are going to be working very hard over the next few months to get that support and hopefully to get that Singapore vote overturned in Turin.
If one third of IOC members are in agreement they could introduce a motion at the next session of the Turin 2006 Winter Games in February that would have to be accepted by half the members present at the session and there would then be a new vote to admit softball to the Games program.
