On Friday representatives from Baseball and Softball among five other sports (Golf, Karate, Rugby, Roller Sports, Squash) lobbied for reinstatement into the 2016 Olympics in front of the program commission of the International Olympic Committee. Each sport had time for an hour-long presentation and had to answer questions for 30 minutes afterwards. The 16 members from the commission are going to deliver a report to the IOC decision makers for the Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark next October.
Baseball’s team in Lausanne was led by IBAF president Harvey Schiller and Major Leaguer Curtis Granderson. Schiller said afterwards, “I thought everybody was smiling. We’re committed to bringing the best players ever to the Olympic baseball tournament,” he said. “We talked about our advances in drug testing. We have an agreement with the professional leagues in terms of out-of-competition testing for the events we sanction.” An IOC delegation also will observe the World Baseball Classic next March.
The president of the International Softball Federation, Don Porter, and the former Olympic swimmer Donna De Verona were part of the Softball delegation. Porter: “More countries are getting to be more competitive, and we’re working toward that. We have got a lot of work to do, and change is coming. We’re doing what we need to make our sport exciting, interesting and available.”
NY Times: Baseball and Softball Lobby for Return to Olympics
ESPN: Team of Baseball reps makes its 2016 case to IOC Panel
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