(ATR) IOC President Jacques Rogge tells Around the Rings he can’t say for sure how many sports will make the shortlist to add to the 2020 Olympics.
On May 29 the IOC Executive Board will meet in St. Petersburg, Russia to choose which of eight sports to consider for addition to the program for 2020.
In the running are baseball/softball, sport climbing, karate, roller sports, squash, wakeboard, wrestling and wushu.
"We will have presentations of the eight sports, and then we will have a discussion, and then see how the eight sports are being ranked by the members. If you have a situation where two or three sports are close to each other then definitely there will be a shortlist," Rogge says.
"But you could have a situation where one sport emerges with a big lead compared the others and then it will be that sport. It’s something we will have to see and discuss after the presentation of the eight sports and then we will decide how big the shortlist will be," he said.
Regardless of the size of the shortlist, there’s only room to add one sport to the 2020 program. In February the EB voted to remove wrestling from the list of 26 core sports that make up the Summer Games program. Under IOC rules wrestling joins the group of sports seeking a spot in 2020.
The outcry over the possible end to Olympic wrestling has been widespread with supporters, including heads of state like Vladimir Putin, rallying to save wrestling’s place in the Games. International federation FILA has undergone a leadership change and has launched an advertising and promotional campaign to raise its profile.
"Acting president Nenad Lalovic is doing a excellent job. He’s a very good sports leader," Rogge said about the response by FILA.
"He admitted humbly that they had issues with their governance, a role for the athletes and a role for women. He admitted also that the sport needed to have a change in terms of presentation and appeal and agreed rules were a bit obscure for outsiders. He’s doing a good job in this respect absolutely."
Rogge insists that if modern pentathlon had been selected instead of wrestling, there would have been a strong reaction, too. He predicts the IOC would have been assailed for eliminating the sport of IOC founder Pierre de Coubertin. Modern pentathlon was the other sport facing being cut in the February EB vote on the 25 core sports.
Rogge says the presentations the eight sports make May 29 will be crucial to their success.
"I think it’s important definitely because these eight sports that are not so much under the scrutiny of the IOC members on a normal basis.
"Golf and rugby did a very good job at explaining their sport and generating enthusiasm and when you look at the score they had, 88 percent or 90 percent of the votes in favor of rugby with only one vote against and only a couple of abstentions," Rogge said.
Golf and rugby were the last new sports admitted to the Summer Olympics, in 2009 for the 2016 Games in Rio. The two were added after baseball and softball were cut in a 2005 IOC vote.
Whatever decision is made by the EB in St. Petersburg will still need to ratified by the IOC Session in Buenos Aires set for September.
More from the interview with Jacques Rogge in the May 21 edition of ATR’s "On the Record".
Reported by Ed Hula
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