Olympic changes for tennis and cycling

The International Olympic Committee today revealed changes in the tennis and cycling programmes to promote gender parity at the London 2012 Games.

Mixed doubles tennis will take place at London 2012, after an IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne approved the suggestion made by the International Tennis Federation.

The event has been introduced alongside the men's and women's singles and men's and women's doubles without increasing the number of overall competitors.

An IOC statement read: 'The changes reflect the IOC's desire to continually refresh the programme, as well as its commitment to increase women's participation.

'The inclusion of the tennis mixed doubles event will not increase the current number of athletes and will bring an added value to the Olympic programme by providing another opportunity for men and women to compete together on the same field of play.'

The IOC ratified the International Cycling Union's proposed changes to the Olympic track cycling programme in full.

In a bid for gender parity, the UCI and IOC have agreed to a programme to begin at London 2012 which features five men's and five women's events.

The men's and women's individual pursuits, men's and women's points races and the men's Madison are to disappear in favour of sprints, keirins, team sprints, team pursuits and omniums for both sexes.

One sport which will not yet receive gender parity is ski jumping.

The Vancouver Winter Olympics, which take place next February, will proceed without a women's ski jumping competition.

In explaining the decision, IOC president Jacques Rogge said the women's competition was not yet competitive enough.

He also alluded to Great Britain's Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards, who finished last at the Calgary Games in 1988.

'In the Olympic Games the eagles don't fly any more,' said Rogge.

'For women's jumping, we considered there were too few international women's jumpers to award three Olympic medals.

'We did not want the medals to be watered down by too little a pool of very good jumpers.'

Rogge revealed there are approximately 164 female ski jumpers registered with the International Ski Federation, compared to over 2,500 men.

He explained that if women continue to improve at the current rate, they are likely to be included at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia, after first being included at the maiden Winter Youth Games in Innsbruck in 2012.

'We consider there was not enough quality but we are considering definitely to include them in Sochi, should the progress they are making continue,' he added.