Futsal, an indoor soccer game with five players to a team, wants to join the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, but the IOC said the games doesn’t qualify because it is not a winter sport. According to the Olympic charter, winter sports have to be played on snow or ice.
UEFA said futsal deserved to be included because it is widely played. Twenty-nine national teams have entered UEFA’s 2002-2003 European futsal tournament.
Meanwhile, triathlon, an Olympic sport that made its debut in Sydney last year, could be dropped from the Games unless it sorts out its international political problems.
The IOC is demanding that the International Triathlon Union, the sport’s governing body, clean up its act or face possible loss of its Olympic status.
IOC sports director Gilbert Felli said, “there is a big fight inside the federation. We want to be assured that the athletes are not prevented from completing or from taking part in qualifying for the 2004 Athens Games”.
IOC director general Francois Carrard said, “these personal quarrels damage the credibility of the sport and its athletes”.
