Olympic sports in emergency meet
LONDON, England -- Heads of the 28 Olympic sports federations will hold an emergency meeting before an International Olympic Committee (IOC) vote on July 8 which could result in some sports being axed from the 2012 Games.
The ASOIF - the body representing the sports - will gather on June 7 in Geneva with some federations in open revolt against IOC president Jacques Rogge.
"I have never seen such anger directed against Rogge," said one federation president who wanted to remain anonymous.
"He is trying to split the 28 federations and have them fight against each other."
Failure to win a simple majority vote by IOC members in Singapore for any of the federations will result in the sport being dropped from the Olympics.
The IOC will choose the 2012 hosts from a short list of Paris, London, New York, Madrid and Moscow two days earlier.
"There are going to be 28 separate votes, one after the other," one high-ranking official told Reuters.
"Will the IOC members really be able to, or be prepared to, concentrate fully on each vote? I'm not so sure.
Concerned federations
"A lot of people are worried and concerned about this vote. I mean, for starters, all the bids for the 2012 Games have been submitted on the assumption the 28 current sports will be contested. What happens if that changes?
"My fear is that with 28 votes back-to-back, members' concentration will waver and we could suffer some shocks."
The IOC executive board's decision on the voting procedure was announced after the ASOIF general assembly had finished in Berlin, so member federations did not have the opportunity to discuss it together.
"Several IFs (International Federations) came to us after Berlin and expressed an interest in discussing this procedure and its consequences for their federations and their sports," ASOIF president Denis Oswald said.
The last sport to be removed from the Olympic Games was polo in 1936.
In 2002 the IOC decided to cap the numbers of sports at an Olympic Games at 28, the number of events at 301 and the number of athletes at 10,500.
At that same session in Mexico City Rogge proposed that baseball, softball and modern pentathlon be dropped, and golf and rugby added.
However IOC members resisted and no vote was taken.
Three years ago the sports earmarked to be dropped were able to rally support and launch campaigns which ultimately saved their status.
With every one of the Olympic sports up for the vote in Singapore there is no obvious target and IOC insiders believe this will make it much harder for vulnerable sports to rally support.
Rugby, squash, golf, karate and roller sports are first in line if a new sport is to be included in the 2012 programme.
Certainly Rogge remains unsentimental. "It is clear that no sport has an eternal right to be on the Olympic programme," he said last week.
Reuters contributed to this report.
