Olympics Delays Sports' Elimination

A decision on whether to drop baseball, softball and modern pentathlon from the Olympics won't come until after the 2004 Athens Games.

The International Olympic Committee chose Friday to put off a vote that could eliminate a Summer Games sport for the first time since polo in 1936.

None of the 39 speakers during Friday's debate expressed support for a report that recommended trimming the three from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The report cited limited international appeal and high costs.

"They've certainly gotten their warning about what our concerns are," said IOC member Dick Pound of Canada.

IOC president Jacques Rogge avoided a question about whether the three sports are assured of being part of the Beijing Olympics.

The sports promised to find ways to share costs - baseball plans to trim the length of its tournament and share fields with softball.

The debate's harshest words were aimed at major league baseball by Israeli IOC member Alex Gilady, who criticized the sport for not letting its top pros play in the Olympics.

"Major league baseball so far is part of the problem and not part of the solution," Gilady said.

Each sport had 10 minutes to present its case.

In support of softball, Jelena Tomic of Croatia said: "To take away the dream from so many girls is the same as banning women in all sports of the Olympics."

The head of the International Baseball Federation, Aldo Notari of Italy, promised that better professional athletes would be included in future Olympic baseball tournaments, which he said would be cheaper and would cover fewer days.

The head of the modern pentathlon federation, Klaus Schormann, said loss of the Olympics would kill his sport altogether. It was created for the 1912 games by modern Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertain. Its five disciplines of shooting, swimming, running, riding and fencing are meant to display well-rounded skills.

"If there are not millions of participants, should the sport die?" Schormann asked, saying it "rolls into one sport all the values of the different sports at the games."

"Don't send us to the Olympic museum," he said.

By John Rice
By John Rice