Bowling not on IOC shortlist for 2020

[GeorgeF]

Bowling Not Included in the IOC Shortlisted Sports for 2020

Today the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee announced a shortlist of sports that will be considered for inclusion in the sports program of the 2020 Olympiad.

The sports are: baseball, karate, roller sports, softball, sports climbing, squash, wake-board, and wushu, one of which could be added to the 2020 sports programme to be voted on by the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires in 2013.

The programme can include a maximum of 28 sports. Unfortunately, Bowling has not been included in the shortlist.




What the hell is wushu?

 

[Roysa]

That's a shame. Can't believe squash gets a mention. Anyone tried to watch squash on tv? You can't see the ball until it stops.

Oh and wushu is a Chinese martial art.

 

[John_Velo]

G'Day,

I thought Softball was dropped for BMX a few games back. BMX should be there as it is an extension of cycling, so it not really a new sport but a discipline of an existing.

So I guess the question is who nominates the sports to actually get on the list? Was bowling on the long list that was cut to this washu list, or not on any list?

The Olympic games are changing and more modern sports need to be added to retain the interest of youth. But I look at it this way, how many people do you know that Fence.....Maybe they need to take a look at all the sports look at the numbers in each and then make a list of sport to include.

Numbers maybe the issue for bowling as they are on the decline when it comes to Association Members. How many Junior bowlers are in the centre you bowl in? When you ask some body if the think bowling is a sport they generally shake their head. Sad really.

Maybe we should try and have it added to the Winter Olympics and we all wear a jumper when we bowl. I am not even going to mention wearing Lycra body suits.....

 

[steve jones]

George.............here's some news from mid November [Press Release IBAF]............my understanding is the relationship whilst cool between the two parties is NOT so cold that it will stop then uniting this weekend - if that's the case given the money and power both hold globally I'd say that Mens Baseball and Womens Softball are a walk-up for 2020..........................


Riccardo Fraccari, the president of IBAF, the international baseball federation, has set a deadline of December 4 for his organisation and the International Softball Federation to formally initiate a joint pitch for their sports to be included in the programme for the 2020 Olympic Games, or risk losing out to other sports whose lobbying has already begun in earnest.

Fraccari and his ISF counterpart Don Porter met with International Olympic Committee officials in Lausanne yesterday and today to discuss the best approach for a possible joint bid.

At present, both sports are being assessed individually by the IOC's Programme Commission, but the two federations acknowledge that their best hope of inclusion in 2020 lies with a joint pitch of men's baseball and women's softball..ENDS


......and George - bowling stopped becoming a real contender for inclusion the minute the money ran out - pure and simple..and that happened a while back...even before the GFC...and if it hadn't happened before it would have happened then. When corporations like Brunswick see their stock price drop from mid $50's per share to under $2.00 [as it did at the height of the GFC] they stop handing out funding and go into survival mode...and who can blame them for that.

 

[steve jones]

John - just a quick response to your point about adding bowling as a Winter Olympics sport. It was attempted [or at least discussed at length] some time ago. One of the avenues considered was that bowling would try and enter as a medal sport by association with [as a "discipline"] Curling which is already an approved sport. It is easier [much] to tack onto an existing sport as a "discipline" of that sport rather than try to enter as a new/unique sport [limited opportunity]. Synchronized Swimming of course is a "discipline" Swimming - if it had tried to enter as a unique sport it wouldn't have happened. The thought had merit - but that's all it had.

The reality is a little less than 25 years ago bowling was offered an open door to enter as a Full Medal sport by paying a "tidy sum" to the IOC - that sum was more than US$10 million but less than US$20 million [this was at a time of course when a US $million was actually worth something]. For a variety of reasons - all thought to be prudent at the time - the offer was rejected. 20/20 hindsight is of course a wonderful thing and it's easy now to read this decision as wrong and be critical. At the time Bowling was very, very close to getting in without paying any sort of "fee" - well, so Bowling thought! There was one other reason why the sum was not paid and this was a potential legal/political complication......I won't go into the detail but it was, well ....."complicated"!

 

[jason_doust]

Is "complicated" a euphemism for "corrupt"?

 

[steve jones]

Hi Jason - trust you are well and busy - your point is well made based on the past history of the IOC and how certain negotiations were "done".......... there are of course a few books available on the subject of both summer and winter games "lobbying" procedures - even if 50% of the content of these writings is to be believed then the state of play in some cases was less than "balanced".

In bowling's case however the payment procedure was above board - the IOC at that time would allow contributions of this kind to help their general revenue.

It needs to be remembered that the IOC in the 1980's was certainly not the financial entity it is today - in some parts of the world, following the Munich disaster [72], the financial nightmare that was the Canadian Summer games [76] the Moscow and LA games boycott debacles [80 & 84] it was a generally accepted view that the Olympics were about done and dusted. It's to the IOC's credit that they have been able to turn this public [and more importantly] commercial/corporate perception around.

The fact was that Bowling's "fee" was to be paid by 3 separate entities - an equal one third split - at the 11th hour one of the parties withdrew leaving the finalising of the payment process utterly unworkable.

One of the remaining parties did attempt to find additional funds to replace the lost third - but this is where the "political" difficulty I refer to reared it's head.

 

[jason_doust]

Hi Steve, quite busy and only a little unwell thanks. (Been a hell of a week.) I thought it best to ask that question, as it's best not left hanging for speculation. That's an interesting chapter in our sport's history. Who'd have thought that politics would bring bowling undone, hey..? Unheard of...

To paraphrase Brian Bridges, "bowling will be great once the empire builders have built their empires." Alas, decades later we are still watching those empires rise and fall.

 

[steve jones]

Jason - [sort of] well and busy is good - hitting it long and straight is the other life quality I aspire to...sadly it will never happen - well at least not often enough for me.

Brian and his father before him are/were very wise.

In this case the "politics' were corporate and were played out in a Board Room in a city I shall not name save I give it all away. Sadly one or two of the players are no longer with us so I'll leave it there as from where they are now it is unlikely they can defend themselves, [or if they did I'd love to collect the stamp on the letter they might send!] should I kick start the blame game.

In my view there was a window of opportunity for Bowling - it has now closed and whilst it is dangerous to say it's closed "forever" - I'd suggest it's closed for a considerable time - and in fact so close to forever as to make saying "forever" almost 100% accurate.

Happy Christmas and a profitable 2012 [Ad infinitum]