IOC keeps softball, modern pentathlon and baseball
Monday, 17 May 2004 16:05The International Olympic Committee today decided that the Olympic future of softball, modern pentathlon and baseball is safe until 2012. The trio of sports had faced expulsion at the IOC session in 2002, but were given a reprieve when members resisted a proposal to drop them all together.
The IOC said no sports would be excluded from the Games for the next eight years. Following emotional pleas by leaders of the three sports at that meeting in Mexico City, IOC members voted to postpone any cuts of entire sports until after the 2004 Summer Olympics. The IOC has not thrown a sport out of the Games since 1936.
IOC president Jacques Rogge said: "After each Games we will review the sports. We have frozen the programme at 28 sports and at 10,500 athletes. If any sport wants to come in, one will have to go. But no sport will be excluded before 2012."
International Softball Federation president Don Porter told Reuters that the decision was a huge relief.
He said: "It is great news. Since 2002 there has been kind of a shadow over everything, but this decision is wonderful. It is a big relief for all of us. The good news is that they (IOC) are going to review the programme after every Games, that is every sport, not just the three that were under threat. That will be an ongoing thing and all federations will have to provide information and figures. That will all be reviewed."
The IOC is meeting at its headquarters in Lausanne to draw up a shortlist of candidates to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. The nine applicants are Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York City, Paris and Rio de Janeiro. The field is likely to be cut to five on Tuesday.
Filed by Mark O'Neill-Cummins
