Jump to content

New sports at 2020 Olympics


gotosy

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 307
  • Created
  • Last Reply
Posted

I agree that the Olympic program shouldn't be so rigid, but 2020 is already a closed issue. If baseball/softball was to be added now, the whole process through which wrestling was chosen would turn out to have been a farce, and it would be extremely unfair for squash and all the sports that didn't make the cut.

Posted

Interesting.

If the USA does mount a bid for 2024, then you'll potentially have just about the only two nations which are geared up for baseball hosting successive Games. In that sense, it would be handy to include baseball for 2020 and 2024, then drop it again!

Posted

A bit of flexibility based on what a host city is capable of and its sporting culture, in tandem with the direction the IOC is going in, would be a great thing. We've already had the nonsense of an 80k seat Twickenham Stadium lying idle during London 2012, only for Rugby to be introduced four years later in Brazil, a country with no Rugby pedigree. I mean, I'm sure they'll do a fine job but.... :blink: ....A bit more joined up thinking would make perfect sense.

If there are no sporting obstacles to having baseball/softball, if the IOC are happy with the integrity of both sports, and if the venues are already there for 2020, why not at least have the conversation? It could even be a one-off, with no promises necessarily for the future.

The squash team are already unhappy with the ridiculousness of the "new" sport process which ended up adding no new sports. This isn't about that; it's about thinking more flexibly going forward. If it happens to benefit baseball (a sport I'm not sure I've ever watched so I've got no agenda here), so be it.

Posted

A Commie-style setup would be perfect - say 25 sports always there & 3 decided by the host nation each time.

Even 25 is too much. I would really hold it down to a basic 18 and then have "2" rotating "guest" sports. Hey, herr Thomas, are u reading this?? That should be ideal and allow even smaller "B" cities to bid.

Posted

I'm curious as to which 18 sports you'd propose. Or is it just a random number?

Well, am pressed for time. But I would remove the somewhat repetitive sports w/ just regional/borderline following:

- Taekwando or Judo;

- Table tennis (it's a garage sport and put in only to appease the Red Chinese);

- boxing (a combative sport and too much controversy);

- Field Hockey (too many athletes and major venues for such a fringe sports);

- same thing with Team Handball (it's waterpolo on a dry court)

- Rugby 7s

- Golf (boring as hell)

Take those out and you'd still have a fairly representative 18 sports.

Posted

I personally wouldn't be too sure about cutting off the Rugby 7s. It hasn't yet had its first Olympic appearance. Who knows? It might work well as an Olympic sport, let alone you don't necessarily have to build an own venue for it.

What about Canoe/Kayak-slalom instead? Does it create that huge TV audiences to justify being one of the worst white elephant creators in the Olympic programme?

Posted

If baseball/softball was to be added now, the whole process through which wrestling was chosen would turn out to have been a farce,

The process was a farce. The IOC didn't want to add any of the candidate sports, so they used the new sport process to force some reforms on wrestling.

Posted

I think you could get it down to a core 18

Tier 1

1.Athletics

2.Aquatics (Water polo, swimming, diving)

3.Basketball

4.Cycling

5.Rowing

6.Gymnastics

7.Volleyball

Tier 2

8.Canoe/Kayak (flatwater)

9.Fencing

10.Wrestling (freestyle)

11.Judo

12.Badminton

Tier 3

13.Triathlon

14.Tennis

15.Taekwondo

16.Rugby

17.Handball

18.Hockey

Cut 900 athletes from aquatics/athletes and have only 8 teams per gender per team sport. With the 10 eliminated sports, plus the cuts, looking at a savings of a dozen venues and 3000 to 4000 athletes.

Allow hosts to propose 4 to 10 addition sports with hard criteria to have existing venues in place or show a need/desire for a new venue to be built with detailed legacy.

It may be draconian and harsh, but it might be what the doctor ordered.

Posted

Guys, I sincerely hope none of you ever becomes IOC member.

Why the obsession with cutting sports? diversity of them is the facking point of this. Cut some of the enormous amount of senseless quota that athletics & aquatics if you want to save some money FGS

Posted

Guys, I sincerely hope none of you ever becomes IOC member.

Why the obsession with cutting sports? diversity of them is the facking point of this. Cut some of the enormous amount of senseless quota that athletics & aquatics if you want to save some money FGS

Much of the diversity is however due to basically letting anyone who can just about swim or run represent their NOC from a remote island or microstate in Europe.

Posted

I thought the vote's been done, or would they just add on top? Would involve quite a high number of athletes though.

Nah. USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, The Dominican Republic, Mexico and (to a lesser degree) The Netherlands and Panama would fill their rosters up with minor leaguers, Winter Leaguers and college baseball players.

Posted

Nah. USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, The Dominican Republic, Mexico and (to a lesser degree) The Netherlands and Panama would fill their rosters up with minor leaguers, Winter Leaguers and college baseball players.

A "high number of athletes" referred to the quantity obviously, not to their level.

Posted

Nah. USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, The Dominican Republic, Mexico and (to a lesser degree) The Netherlands and Panama would fill their rosters up with minor leaguers, Winter Leaguers and college baseball players.

Baseball is also BIG in both Japan and Taiwan; somewhat in South Korea. Liberia? But that's really only about a dozen countries where the has any sense of a legitimate presence.

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Baseball, softball might still have pulse for Olympic status

The Olympic future of America's national pastime could be decided very soon in Sochi, Russia.

Officials with the World Baseball Softball Confederation are increasingly optimistic that the International Olympic Committee will consider reinstating both sports during its session at the upcoming Sochi Games.

Baseball and softball were last contested as Olympic sports in 2008, and the IOC voted in September against bringing them back for the 2020 Games in Tokyo. (Wrestling was kept instead.) But the IOC may reconsider that decision because of the revenue possibilities -- at the gate and through television ratings -- in the baseball-mad host country.

Tokyo's local organizing committee is said to be lobbying quietly for new IOC President Thomas Bach to give baseball and softball another hearing. If attendance at the World Baseball Classic is any guide, the Japanese team likely would play before massive crowds in Tokyo; interest would be especially high if Nippon Professional Baseball, the top professional league in Japan, agreed to go on hiatus so the country's best players could compete.

"Over the years, we have listened to and learned from the IOC," Riccardo Fraccari, president of the International Baseball Federation, said Thursday in an email to FOX Sports, "and we feel ready to accept the duties, commitment and responsibilities, so that, once again, baseball and softball can be entrusted with being part of the Olympic family of sports."

Fraccari said the inclusion of both sports in the 2020 Games "would significantly accelerate baseball and softball's current rates of expansion and provide a major boost to our National Federation members."

Though Fraccari didn't say so explicitly, baseball programs outside the United States have suffered financially in the absence of funding related to the Olympics.

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has supported the sport's campaign to re-enter the Olympics, but he has said consistently it is not feasible for the league to shut down entirely for two weeks so all major leaguers would be eligible to compete.

At Beijing in 2008, the U.S. Olympic roster consisted largely of professionals who weren't on 40-man rosters -- a mixture of rising prospects and minor-league veterans, along with then-college star Stephen Strasburg. (The Americans won bronze, behind South Korea and Cuba.) It is very possible MLB officials would permit a similar group of professionals to compete in 2020, but much could change between now and then. Selig is one year away from retirement, and international participation by major leaguers is governed by the collective bargaining agreement, which expires after the 2016 season.

For now, the World Baseball Classic is the only best-versus-best tournament involving professionals on the sport's international calendar. MLB and the MLB Players Association are fully invested in the WBC because, among other things, they control the rules and profits associated with it. (Selig has said he wants his successor to continue the WBC; the next edition is scheduled for 2017.)

Other than the WBC, sources say MLB officials are more inclined to furnish professional players to the Olympics than lower-profile competitions such as the Pan-American Games and IBAF Premier 12. The IBAF plans to launch the Premier 12 in November 2015 -- likely in Asia -- as a successor to the discontinued IBAF World Cup, but the organization has yet to establish specifics or make a formal request to use players under contract with MLB clubs.

Toronto hosts the Pan-Am Games next year, but the baseball and softball competitions will be held at a complex in suburban Ajax, Ontario, instead of the Blue Jays' home stadium, Rogers Centre. The men's baseball competition will include seven teams.

Source

Posted

Baseball and softball's potential return to the Olympic program for Tokyo 2020 got a major boost on Wednesday, receiving the backing of Olympic Council of Asia President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah.

Sheikh Ahmad, the Kuwaiti powerbroker who is said to have pulled strings for Tokyo's 2020 bid and Thomas Bach's campaign for the International Olympic Committee presidency, said he sees no reason why the two sports shouldn't be allowed to return if all the relevant parties want them back.

On Monday, IOC President Bach said the rule forcing a sport to wait seven years before gaining entry to the Olympics is outdated. The German has also said he wants more than the current maximum of 28 sports.

Posted

Baseball and softball's potential return to the Olympic program for Tokyo 2020 got a major boost on Wednesday, receiving the backing of Olympic Council of Asia President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah. Sheikh Ahmad, the Kuwaiti powerbroker who is said to have pulled strings for Tokyo's 2020 bid and Thomas Bach's campaign for the International Olympic Committee presidency, said he sees no reason why the two sports shouldn't be allowed to return if all the relevant parties want them back. On Monday, IOC President Bach said the rule forcing a sport to wait seven years before gaining entry to the Olympics is outdated. The German has also said he wants more than the current maximum of 28 sports.

Yeah, that's so consistent with the cost cutting ideas...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...