(Author's note: The 6 articles below were written in the run up to the decision by the IOC on the 2020 Olympic sports program)
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| Roger Federer, tennis legend, with Nicol David, squash legend, standing together in support of Olympic squash |
Entry of July 2012: 'Squash and the Olympics, Part One'
Squash is in the running to be included in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. A reliable source once told me that a few decades ago squash simply had to formally apply to the IOC and it would have been guaranteed entry into the Games, but the powers that be (in squash) dragged their feet and did not apply. Then when they decided they wanted in, it was too late. One wonders what the motivation was to keep the sport out of the Games. During the 1970's squash was one of the preeminent sports in the world. Winning the British Open was the highest honor, it was the de facto World Champs at the time, and it was competed for by the best squash players from many countries around the world. I am sure those squash players would have opted to play for Olympic Gold had they gotten the chance. One can only hope that the decision at the time was made for good reasons, with the best interests of the sport in mind.
It must have been hard for all the squash players who competed in the recent British Open in London to pass by the Olympic venue for this year knowing that squash won't be a part of it. The selection process for the London Olympics, which happened eight years ago, resulted in no new sports being added. Squash came closer than any other sport to getting in to this year's Games, but the decision to include it somehow did not get ratified in the end (a two thirds majority is required), so it did not happen for 2012. Irrespective of squash not being a part of it, you may be as excited as I am about the upcoming Olympics. With the extent of coverage of the selection trials and all the marketing of the Games themselves it is hard not to get enthused as a sports fan. Remember back to the last Olympics, there were some pretty memorable moments. Most notable for me was seeing Michael Phelps win every event he entered. No mean feat. He is looking in fine form again by winning various US team trials this week. Three more medals in London and he will have more Olympic medals in total than any athlete in history.
Organizing the Olympics is an amazing feat in itself and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) work hard behind the scenes to keep everything moving along. The Games themselves are a culmination of years of effort and planning. The IOC have lots of tough decisions to make, one of them being which sports to include. Golf and rugby sevens got voted in for the next Olympics in Rio in 2016, at the expense of, amongst others, karate and squash. Golf has not been in the Olympics for a century but is back in the fold, a great outcome for the millions of golf fans around the world. The IOC slightly complicated their lives by choosing golf though, because now they need to build a brand new top flight golf course to host the competition. The course not only needs to be challenging enough but also it needs to be designed well enough to handle the number of golfers who will play on it in such a short period of time. Deciding on the right golf course designer would have been an important decision and was no doubt very carefully considered. The IOC finally settled on a well known American company to do the work, Hanse Golf Course Design. What you may not know is that the company was founded and is run by a gentleman whose daughter went to squash powerhouse, Trinity College. So at the very least he is aware of the game, and at best he is a fan and may even put in a good word for squash. What I like about this particular decision is that the IOC chose from eight alternatives and went with the candidate that most aptly met the selection criteria issued by the Rio 2016 organizers. The careful transparent selection process resulted in a good decision in the end.
There are two big decisions for the 2020 Games that the Executive Board of the IOC will make in Buenos Aires on September 7th next year. They will decide on where the Summer Olympic Games will be held in 2020 and will also announce which new sport will be added in that year. There are 26 sports in the Summer Olympics this year and, with the addition of rugby sevens and golf, there will be 28 in 2016, which is the maximum number of sports per paragraph 2.1.4. of the Olympic Charter. So I believe the only way a new sport can get in is to drop an existing one, the choice as to which one of these should get dropped will be an interesting one. It will be a tough choice, unlike if we were trying to get figure out which sport to drop from the Winter Olympics, which would be an easy decision (starts with a C).
But since the choice of sport is often influenced by the location for the Games, let us focus first on which city is likely to host the 2020 Games. The shortlist of potential sites is Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul. Each of these cities has tried before but only Tokyo has previously hosted a Summer Olympics (1964). The IOC has stated that the most important criteria when considering which city should host the games is not the financial resources of the host country but the risk attached to the project, i.e. where the Games is most likely to be run successfully and without incident. They made their point by previously cutting the cities of Doha and Baku from the 2020 list, even though both are in cash-rich oil countries. To my mind, Tokyo is the favorite amongst the three cities still in the running, despite the fact that the last Summer Olympics and the 2018 Winter Olympics were given to neighboring China. I say this because Europe is in the midst of an economic crisis that directly affects both Spain and Turkey.
The Spanish government would have to provide financial guarantees for the project in order for the IOC to commit to them. This seems a little reckless at a time when the country is in a severe debt crisis and their biggest banks are taking bailout money. Turkey presents a different issue, they have applied to host the Euro Soccer Champs in 2020, the same year as the Olympics. This does not sit well with the IOC and they probably won’t go with Istanbul, simply because the Turkish citizens themselves would much prefer to host the soccer. I don’t think a national referendum would be required to prove this, just ask any Turkish friend you have (who is not a weightlifter). So, by a process of elimination, Tokyo is a natural front runner for the 2020 Games. Tokyo also has a track record of putting on a Games successfully and an Olympics may have significant intangible benefits for the Japanese people themselves in the wake of last year's natural disaster in that country. I think Tokyo will host the 2020 Summer Olympics and I hope they do, but this does not bode well for squash. The reason I say this is that karate is likely to make the most impact if included.
Karate has been around since World War 2. It was started in Okinawa, Japan, and has about 50 million practitioners around the globe (according to the Japanese government), which is more than twice the number of squash players. But there are already two martial arts events at the Olympics - judo and taekwondo. So why include karate too? And what about sumo, aikido, jujitsu and the 54 other Japanese martial arts, surely they all would also want to be a part of it? Nevertheless, if karate gets in it will certainly be a spectacle (think Karate Kid).
Wushu, too, has to be a leading contender after making a splash at the most recent Olympics. Wushu is basically kung fu and is an all encompassing chinese martial art. Wushu literally means martial art. This sport received special dispensation from the IOC to be held as an independent sporting tournament in Beijing at the same time that the last Olympic Games was being held, something they would never ordinarily allow, except for official exhibition sports (which it was not). The wushu competition was held in the Olympic stadium, the competitors stayed in the Olympic Village and the winners received medals in a ceremony just like the Olympians did. But unlike karate, which would presumably be a full-contact competition, wushu likely won't be real fighting. There is a full-contact bare-handed version of wushu but the most impressive form of the sport includes a range of weapons. Clearly the competitors cannot actually fight each other with real knives and swords so instead the athletes put on solo demonstrations with their weapons and then receive points based on a set of aesthetic criteria (see pic at bottom). This sounds more like art than sport.
I guess squash is just not as impressive to watch as these other sports. And there is not as much variation in squash - there is only one common instrument, a racquet, and only ever one ball on court. And there is only one popular version of the game (international softball singles), one governing body (the World Squash Federation), one set of rules and a single universally accepted scoring system. There are not a variety of different fighting styles or sects within the sport. There is no good acting on a squash court (a little bad acting perhaps) and when it is played well, there is no violence either. Normally, there is no blood on a squash court. So why include squash when it is not as impressive as a martial arts contest? I cannot think of a reason, aside from the fact that squash is a real competition, it takes significant physical and mental strength in order to play it well. And it is the healthiest sport in the world and is played by 20 million people on all seven continents (prior world champions hail from only five different continents though). And it is really affordable for almost everyone on the planet and is a sport that can be played for an entire lifetime. Other than that, I can't think of any reasons why squash would be perfect for the Olympics. I mean, it is not like squash captures the essence of gladiatorial conflict in a totally real, yet non violent way..
The other sports shortlisted for 2020 are baseball, roller sports, softball, sports climbing and wakeboard. Baseball and softball got voted out previously so probably stand little chance of getting back in. Roller sports were exhibited at a prior Olympics but the sport did not receive the traction it needed, no pun intended. Sports climbing and wakeboard are loads of fun but are not well known throughout the world. The good news is we won’t have to wait until September 2013 to know which sports the IOC are leaning towards. Early next year the shortlist will be cut one more time. It is not clear how many sports will be left for possible inclusion after the cut, but it seems to me that this list may very well include squash, karate, wushu, plus whichever sport gets voted out after London (included on the list by default). Of course, in order to make space, one existing sport will need to go. The way I understand it, that is not guaranteed to happen. If it does, what will that sport be?
What do you think the chances are that squash will get voted into the 2020 Olympics and which sport is likely to get cut to make place for it, if any? For what it's worth, I'll give you my best guess in my next blog.
Entry of August 2012: ''Squash and The Olympics, Part Two'
Thank God the Olympics are over. I did not get anything done for two weeks. Come evening time all I could think about was getting home to watch the day’s events on TV. The coverage was incredible. In the US it seemed there were at least three cable channels almost entirely dedicated to the Games, so one could have easily spent the full two weeks on the couch. I really don't need this kind of temptation.
Thinking back, there were so many stand out moments during the Games that it is hard to choose just one favorite. I enjoyed seeing Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt achieve greatness and watching the Fab Five win the team gold in the women's gymnastics. And who can forget Misty and Kerri's third straight gold in the highly entertaining women's beach volleyball, or the inspirational efforts of double amputee Oscar Pistorius in the 400m? He competes again in the Paralympics starting next week in London.
There were many notable performances by the home team too which would have made the British fans so proud. Remember the victories of Sir Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins in cycling, Farah Mohamed on the track, by pentathlete Jessica Ennis and the Brownlee brothers in the triathlon and, of course, Andy Murray, who defeated his nemesis, Roger Federer, on center court at Wimbledon just a few weeks after losing to him in yet another crushing grand slam final. How sweet was that gold medal for the British fans?
The sad part for many Brits would have been the fact that the sport of squash was not part of the Games, as Britain is the home of the sport and both the current world number one and two ranked squash players are British. So the exclusion of squash is even more painful than it would otherwise be, with the knowledge that Team GB would have surely attained more medals.
With the prospect of squash possibly getting into the games in the future, I have been doing some investigative research (of the very amateur kind) and have found out a lot more regarding the process for a sport to get voted into the Olympics, plus what happened with the prior vote where squash just missed the cut. To read my in depth analysis of how the IOC voting processes works please click here.
Let us contemplate which new sport could get voted in by the IOC... A lot of people (not me) would opt to cut a sport like rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming out of the Olympics without even thinking twice. But the reality is that doing this won't get another sport in. Those sports are part of the International Federation of Gymnastics and the International Swimming Federation and they aren't going anywhere. So all cutting those two would do is free up the number of athletes and allow one or more of the existing twenty eight federations to increase their number of competitors or number of disciplines (events) in their chosen sport.
In order for a brand new sport like squash to get voted in, another international sports federation that is already a member of the IOC will have to be replaced by the World Squash Federation. That is how golf and rugby sevens got in. So the real list of sports that can get cut is only twenty eight. And many of these aren't going anywhere. E.g. track and field and weightlifting which have been around since the beginning of time.
The sports that I think could potentially be in trouble (and please note that these are completely my own observations) are badminton, boxing and taekwondo. Badminton has got to be in trouble after the incidents at the London Games. Eight badminton competitors were kicked out of the Olympics for trying to throw matches in the pool stages. The players concerned were warned many times by the referee to play their matches, but ultimately those teams did everything they could to lose and were eventually boo’ed off the stage by the fans in the arena. That is inexcusable behavior for an Olympic athlete and I am glad they got kicked out. Although, come to think of it, the poor players probably fear their coaches and their governments more than they do the fans, the referees or the Olympic officials themselves. It remains to be seen what action the IOC will take to ensure that this does not happen in future. Of course, if Badminton got voted out a natural replacement would be another racquet sport, so this outcome may be a good result for squash.
In reality it is more likely that a fighting sport will get voted out of the Olympics in future. Taekwondo has already received a warning, in that the IOC required many changes to the rules since the last Olympics in order to make the sport safer and the judging easier. But these new rules have changed the game so much that it barely resembles traditional Korean Taekwondo. Many practitioners are not happy that the traditional fight style has been replaced by this softer Olympic version. It remains to be seen what unfolds within the sport itself and whether the best fighters even show up for the next Olympics.
The best boxers certainly do not show up. Professional boxers don’t step into the ring unless they are getting paid a small fortune. There was a similar gripe with baseball and the MLB refusing to grant players leave to play in the Olympics. This action does not sit well with the IOC and sports that do this, like boxing, must find themselves in jeopardy. The fact that there were allegations of match fixing in the Olympics does not bode well for the sport either. There was one bout that was laughable. A boxer fell to his knees six times in the final round in a clear attempt to throw the match, or just give up for some reason. The referee refused to give him the ten count each time he fell and he was awarded the victory anyway. His opponent had already done a few victory laps around the ring. The worst part of it is that the IOC kicked the ref out of the Olympics, and not the boxer.
Fighting sports are always going to be contentious and perhaps this is why there are not more of them in the Olympics. This may explain why the ARISF recently started a new competition called the World Combat Games. It is a good alternative for many fighting sports that will never be a part of the Olympic program. Taekwondo, boxing, wushu and karate are all a part of these Games already.
I think when the IOC sits down and reviews the London Games in the next few months they may make an announcement and we will know then if they are leaning towards cutting an existing sport or not. There is a novel way that squash could get in without knocking other sports out, however. It could join forces with the existing racquet sports under the International Racketlon Federation. That way, even though the individual federations for tennis, badminton and table tennis would have to resign as members of the IOC, nothing would change for their sports during the Games itself. But squash could then be a part of it too.
So the events proposed by the International Racketlon Federation, as a new member of the IOC, would be 1) tennis, 2) table tennis, 3) badminton, 4) squash and 5) an overall winner based on points across all four sports, you know, similar to the format of the gymnastics competition. In fact, if Racketlon came in and three were removed that would leave space for two new sports to join, e.g. karate and wushu. Maybe we can all just sit down together and figure it out?
One way or another, squash has a very real chance of getting voted into the Olympics next year. The efforts have been overwhelming. The WSF have hired a communications company to ensure our message is delivered the right way to the IOC and they have created the highly publicized Back the Bid 2020 campaign, along with ensuring that all of the world's top pros are behind the effort. The PSA itself has taken great strides in developing the suitability of squash for TV and has added many more events to the calendar and ensured high standards of consistency and professionalism in order to increase the visibility and profile of the sport. And the online squash community comprising professional journalists and amateur bloggers has written numerous articles debating the merits of squash being a part of the Games. Just go take a browse through all the articles at www.squashsite.com or www.dailysquashreport.com.
My favorite article of all is a lucid letter from one of the best squash players of all time (many consider the best), Jahangir Khan, in which he states quite succinctly all the good reasons why squash should be an Olympic sport.
If the IOC vote next year in September is a popularity contest (and it probably will be), then one has to believe that squash will be in a great position to finally get into the Olympics, a place where it rightfully belongs.
My favorite article of all is a lucid letter from one of the best squash players of all time (many consider the best), Jahangir Khan, in which he states quite succinctly all the good reasons why squash should be an Olympic sport.
If the IOC vote next year in September is a popularity contest (and it probably will be), then one has to believe that squash will be in a great position to finally get into the Olympics, a place where it rightfully belongs.
Entry of May 2013: 'Squash and the Olympics, Part Three'
This Wednesday in Frankfurt, Germany, the condensed single night squash tournament that was made popular in Boston arrived in continental Europe. A US company run by John Nimick called Event Engine hosted the inaugural KPMG Grand Slam Cup in Frankfurt, Germany. The games format for these one day events is shortened to make the events more entertaining for the crowd. And they have also introduced a sudden death third game decider that makes for nail-biting viewing for the spectators as well as the large online TV audience. Furthermore, the fact that there were no PSA ranking points on the line (which would be the case if squash were played in the Olympics) created an almost exhibition-type atmosphere where everyone was quite relaxed and where the players' complete arsenal of shots were laid bare. The lucky spectators at the cocktail tables at the foot of the court, those in the stands on either side, the office workers peering in from the glass cubicles above and all of those watching live on PSASquashTV could appreciate the players' full set of talents on display. Everyone could see the play very clearly and follow the white ball perfectly. The game of squash has a come a long way in terms of visual appeal.
This holographic type court in Frankfurt looked incredible. With dark blue lighting in the exterior of the court and proper lighting in the interior the walls were almost perfectly transparent. This is an incredible way to showcase the sport and I hope the members of the IOC Executive Board were watching. In two weeks time from now they will make the decision on which sports to cut from a list of eight vying for a single spot in the 2020 Olympics. According to all the current polls the front runners to make the cut are squash, karate and wrestling, with wushu, roller sports and sports climbing as the outside chances (based on polls and info I've gathered). It is not clear how many of the eight sports will remain on the shortlist - as this is new ground for the IOC - and there is no precedent here (refer to my prior posts here). The IOC Board will have to decide on the shortlist in two weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia. Then the 134 person IOC membership will review the shortlist from the Board and vote on which single sport to include in 2020 during their general assembly in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 8, 2013. This new voting process could prove to be excellent news for squash, as long as we can get through the Board decision in two weeks time.
This holographic type court in Frankfurt looked incredible. With dark blue lighting in the exterior of the court and proper lighting in the interior the walls were almost perfectly transparent. This is an incredible way to showcase the sport and I hope the members of the IOC Executive Board were watching. In two weeks time from now they will make the decision on which sports to cut from a list of eight vying for a single spot in the 2020 Olympics. According to all the current polls the front runners to make the cut are squash, karate and wrestling, with wushu, roller sports and sports climbing as the outside chances (based on polls and info I've gathered). It is not clear how many of the eight sports will remain on the shortlist - as this is new ground for the IOC - and there is no precedent here (refer to my prior posts here). The IOC Board will have to decide on the shortlist in two weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia. Then the 134 person IOC membership will review the shortlist from the Board and vote on which single sport to include in 2020 during their general assembly in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 8, 2013. This new voting process could prove to be excellent news for squash, as long as we can get through the Board decision in two weeks time.
Eight years ago the IOC Executive Board voted squash and karate into the Olympics, but the decision was not ratified by the required majority of the general assembly. That resulted in no new sports for the London 2012 games. Four years later squash was back in the running but we lost out to golf and rugby sevens. These two sports will now be included in the 2016 Olympics in Rio. You may be interested to know that there is a public record here of the voting process that took place in Berlin in 2009 amongst the 15 person IOC Executive Board. If you follow the voting process you will see that the decision was made through a process of elimination, and you will realize that squash came in second to last. In fact, not a single member of the Board voted for squash in the first blind vote!
And here is the truly frightening part, the majority of the members of the current Executive Board are the very same members of the vote in 2009. So the fact that decision to be made in two weeks will be made by these same individuals means that squash is certainly not guaranteed of going through. If anything, it is the opposite. The eight members of the Executive Board who previously voted against squash will have had to change their minds over the last four years. This may lead one to wonder what are they basing their decisions on.
The decision of which sport to include for 2020 is not taken lightly by the IOC. The IOC Board has appointed a Program Commission to do thorough research on the various sports and prepare findings that will be delivered in both written form and as presentations in St. Petersburg and again in Buenos Aires. The IOC commission did similar research for the previous decisions. Here is a copy of the report which was prepared in order to help the IOC decide on two new sports at that time. Interestingly, it is not clear from the report how the sports were ranked by the Program Commission, if at all, but we know that the Board chose rugby sevens and golf for 2016. Let us look briefly at the criteria that, based on the Olympic Charter, were considered when making that decision.
The decision of which sport to include for 2020 is not taken lightly by the IOC. The IOC Board has appointed a Program Commission to do thorough research on the various sports and prepare findings that will be delivered in both written form and as presentations in St. Petersburg and again in Buenos Aires. The IOC commission did similar research for the previous decisions. Here is a copy of the report which was prepared in order to help the IOC decide on two new sports at that time. Interestingly, it is not clear from the report how the sports were ranked by the Program Commission, if at all, but we know that the Board chose rugby sevens and golf for 2016. Let us look briefly at the criteria that, based on the Olympic Charter, were considered when making that decision.
The values which the IOC look for in determining a sport’s suitability for the Olympic program are youth appeal, universality, popularity, good governance, respect for athletes and respect for the Olympic values. In order to achieve this there are various more objective criteria against which each sport is evaluated. The concept of universality for instance is measured by the number of nations involved in the sport. Popularity and growth of the sport are gauged though ticket sales, media coverage and sponsorships. There needs to be transparency and fairness in the refereeing process, there can be no record of discrimination. The athlete's welfare is important and the sport needs a clean anti-doping record. There need to be good governance structures in place and a record of ethical behavior and representativeness (of athletes in leadership positions). The history and tradition of the sport are also evaluated, but together these two factors are only one of various criteria which are evaluated. This may explain why wrestling got voted out recently (more on this though in a later posting).
The Program Commission is undoubtedly hard at work compiling their report for 2020 which evaluates each sport against these stated criteria; they might even be finished with it already. Assuming the Executive Board is suitably impressed by the facts and presentations they hear in two weeks time, and they've had a change of heart from four years ago, squash will make it through this 14 person vote and then get evaluated by the 134 person general assembly in September. By that stage, the decision is no longer made in a closed Board meeting where the preferences of the one or two senior individuals may influence the outcome of the vote. Jacques Rogge's term as IOC President is over this year and in September the general assembly will also vote on the new president. The new Board president is likely to be a German Olympic gold medalist in fencing, Mr. Thomas Bach. He is the current IOC vice president and seems to have very good support for his nomination. His announcement came yesterday, coincidentally, the day after the game of squash was showcased in his home country like it had never been before.
Should the final vote by the general assembly in September come down to a popularity contest then squash is very well placed. Despite the fact that the entire squash community (including every single professional player) is in support of Olympic inclusion, many of the world's best tennis players, rugby players, cricketers, cyclists, badminton stars, triathletes, and many other sportsmen and women also believe that squash is the right sport to include in 2020. Just have a look at the names of all the great athletes at Squash2020.com.
Many of these legendary athletes are Olympic medal holders themselves. If you too want to do your part, then please consider liking the Squash 2020 Facebook page, use #vote4squash and @vote4squash as much as you can on Twitter and register your own personal vote for squash in the iSportConnect poll. Or if you personally know someone who is a member of the IOC feel free to call them and tell them why squash is the perfect sport for the Olympics.
We are at the penultimate stage now and the private Board vote that happens in two weeks may the highest hurdle squash will face in this whole process. We can only hope that the IOC Executive Board will objectively consider the strengths and weaknesses of each sport as they stand today. Aside from the objective merits for voting for squash, two people who will soon stand before the IOC in St. Petersburg and make a personal appeal are the current best male and female squash players in the world, Ramy Ashour and Nicol David. These are two of the best role models any sport could ever want to have. When the IOC listens to the sincerity with which they speak and sees their love for the sport and their genuine excitement about the possibility of Olympic inclusion, then there will be no doubt in anyones minds that squash deserves to be on the shortlist for the final decision in September.
Many of these legendary athletes are Olympic medal holders themselves. If you too want to do your part, then please consider liking the Squash 2020 Facebook page, use #vote4squash and @vote4squash as much as you can on Twitter and register your own personal vote for squash in the iSportConnect poll. Or if you personally know someone who is a member of the IOC feel free to call them and tell them why squash is the perfect sport for the Olympics.
We are at the penultimate stage now and the private Board vote that happens in two weeks may the highest hurdle squash will face in this whole process. We can only hope that the IOC Executive Board will objectively consider the strengths and weaknesses of each sport as they stand today. Aside from the objective merits for voting for squash, two people who will soon stand before the IOC in St. Petersburg and make a personal appeal are the current best male and female squash players in the world, Ramy Ashour and Nicol David. These are two of the best role models any sport could ever want to have. When the IOC listens to the sincerity with which they speak and sees their love for the sport and their genuine excitement about the possibility of Olympic inclusion, then there will be no doubt in anyones minds that squash deserves to be on the shortlist for the final decision in September.
When the result of the IOC Executive Board vote regarding the new sport for the 2020 Olympics was revealed last week, I was very relieved that squash made the shortlist along with wrestling and baseball/softball (baseball and softball joined forces and are considered one sport). But, honestly, the more overwhelming sensation was a sick feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.
The reason I was uncomfortable about the decision was because wrestling was the clear favorite of the IOC Board during this vote. I suspected that this would happen after comments made by Jacques Rogge, the outgoing IOC president. In September this year his twelve year term will be over and the IOC will have a new president. That vote on a new sport for 2020 will take place at the IOC general assembly meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A host city will also be selected for 2020 at that time. For the record: There is only a single spot for a ‘new’ sport. Two of the three sports on the shortlist have already been in the Olympic sports program, so to say they are ‘new’ would be an inaccurate description. For the sake of inclusiveness, transparency, fairness and advancement of the Olympic movement, one would think that the choice faced by the IOC membership is an easy one. Just vote for the sport that has never been in the Games and has never been kicked out. That is, vote for squash.
It is completely bizarre that baseball/softball and wrestling, sports which have been voted out of the Olympic program, are up for re-election into the Games in September. Baseball/softball got voted out four years ago. The very same Executive Board members voted wrestling out as recently as this February. One thinks the Board would have carefully considered the merits and weaknesses of each sport and made up their minds on which to cut from the core program. If baseball and wrestling were cut by the Board then this was done for good reason and it makes no sense to reconsider these sports for inclusion because what material changes could there have been in such a short time frame? Rogge has gone on record to say that what the Board should be looking for is the strongest possible sports, that is, the highest quality sports program. One can only speculate as to what strongest and quality mean in this instance.
Four years ago the sports selected for the Rio 2016 Olympics were rugby sevens and golf. Rogge, a rugby player himself in his youth, publicly favored rugby before the 2009 decision and then praised his fellow Board members after that vote. Only the fourteen Board members vote on the sports program. The president himself does not vote. I guess that gives him a sense of deniability in the process, as if to say "See, they voted that sport in, not me." The reality is that the president has massive influence on his fellow Board member's decisions. And he probably had even more influence during this vote, because of his pending endorsement regarding who should be selected as the new president in September.
You can imagine how I felt when Rogge publicly declared just before the vote last week that he hoped the Board would seriously consider wrestling as a 'contender' for the September shortlist. And then, BOOM, wrestling gets the most votes by the Board. It was like a blow to the stomach. Immediately after the announcement Rogge tells the press that he was very happy with the decision that was made by his fellow Board members. No kidding he is happy. It is exactly what he wanted! Rogge even chose to sit right next to wrestling's biggest fan, Russian president Vladimir Putin, during the press conference at which the announcement was made.
If Jacques Rogge always gets what he wants, then he should just go ahead and choose a sport himself and let the rest of the world know his decision. Why has he put squash through the whole drama of applying for IOC membership for the last three reviews of the Olympic sports program. Squash has been dealing with this for almost a decade. We are tired of it. In the end, if wrestling gets voted back in, then it seems that the inclusion of squash and baseball/softball on the latest shortlist is there merely to provide the illusion of integrity in the decision making process. A process in which, it seems, a sport already decided upon was always going to be re-included into the Olympic program. I am not the only person who feels this way. I have come accross many bloggers and professional sports journalists that agree with this sentiment.
If Jacques Rogge always gets what he wants, then he should just go ahead and choose a sport himself and let the rest of the world know his decision. Why has he put squash through the whole drama of applying for IOC membership for the last three reviews of the Olympic sports program. Squash has been dealing with this for almost a decade. We are tired of it. In the end, if wrestling gets voted back in, then it seems that the inclusion of squash and baseball/softball on the latest shortlist is there merely to provide the illusion of integrity in the decision making process. A process in which, it seems, a sport already decided upon was always going to be re-included into the Olympic program. I am not the only person who feels this way. I have come accross many bloggers and professional sports journalists that agree with this sentiment.
Eight years ago squash got voted into the Olympics by the IOC Board, then the general assembly of 100+ members were required to ratify the decision. They did not and squash missed out. But we learned many valuable lessons by participating in the process and took a step backwards and revised the sport to the liking of the IOC. But, four years later on, squash lucked out again, that time it was not even close. After that decision was made, Rogge stated in a letter to the World Squash Federation "...we have been most impressed by the professionalism and thoroughness of your proposition. Upon review of your documents, we certainly noted progress on many fronts since 2005, and you should be commended for this positive evolution...". The IOC president himself acknowledged the strides that squash had made towards becoming more Olympic.
Well, it is four years later on now and we have come even further since then and have radically changed the way the sport is presented. Peter Lasusa, Board chair of US Squash, recently praised the leadership at the WSF by saying “…our sport has done an excellent job distinguishing itself from other contenders by undertaking significant innovation combined with strong communications about how the attributes of our great sport fit perfectly with the IOC’s expressed vision for the Games.” Over the last decade squash has changed the scoring, the refereeing, the courts, the camera angles, the replays and lighting and broadcasting, everything really. The sport is now a new product ready for a big audience. It is exciting to watch, and easy to follow and there are good character stories that go along with it. So, given all the hard work and changes that have been made, why is squash not the favorite of the IOC? I don’t understand why the IOC president has shied away from supporting one of the three cities for 2020 or one of the six potential presidents, but has very publicly favored only one of the three sports on the line for 2020.
Jacque Rogge's wishes aside, there are 39 objective criteria that the IOC say they use when evaluating sports relative to one another. The list is a bit long, but let’s take a look at these, shall we. Obviously I am biased in what I want the final result to be, but here is my honest to goodness attempt at ranking the three contending sports in each of the 39 categories. Next to each criteria, in brackets, I listed the sport/s which I think lead in that category (these are my opinions only, based on my own limited research).
1) Value added to the Olympics by including the sport (baseball/softball)
2) Good governance structure evidenced by a code of ethics and good dispute resolution mechanisms (squash)
3) Priorities within the strategic planning process for the sport (squash, our priorities have been guided by the IOC for almost a decade)
4) Gender equity in elected bodies (squash; note that from 1896-2000 there were no women’s wrestling events at the Olympics)
5) Protections against Illegal and irregular betting (squash)
6) Date of establishment of the sporting federation (wrestling)
7) Number of times the sport has been in the Olympic program (not applicable, because not a criterion upon which to measure a ‘new’ sport)
8) The number and frequency of World Championships (squash and wrestling)
9) Number of times the sport has been included in other multi-sport games in the recent past (squash)
10) Number of affiliated national federations (squash)
11) Active member national federations (squash)
12) Global spread of medals won by countries at the last two Olympics (not applicable, because only wrestling was in the last Olympics)
13) Global spread of medals won by countries at the last two World Champs (squash)
14) General public appeal (squash or wrestling)
15) Youth appeal (not sure, varies by country)
16) Athletes participation in the Games (n/a)
17) Spectator participation in the Games (n/a)
18) Number of spectators at the last two World Champs (if the World Series counts, then baseball, else squash)
19) Number of media accreditations at the last two World Champs (if the World Series counts, then baseball, else squash)
20) Written press coverage of the Olympics (n/a)
21) Television coverage of the Olympics (n/a)
22) Digital media presence - website visitors, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter (baseball or, if specific to the Olympic bid effort, squash)
23) Sponsors (baseball, by far, if considered outside of the Olympics)
24) Athlete representation on governing bodies (squash)
25) Athlete’s commission within the federation (not sure, but squash definitely has one)
26) Existence of athlete career programs and assistance (not sure)
27) Athlete’s entourage i.e. agents, coaches, medical staff, etc (baseball/softball)
28) Athlete’s health (squash)
29) Scope of development programs (not sure, wrestling or squash, squash does have thriving urban development programs in many countries)
30) Technical evolution re venues, clothing, equipment (squash, note that ‘evolution’ means change)
32) Sport for All initiatives within the federation (squash and wrestling)
34) Environment in terms of sustainability, footprint, etc (squash or wrestling)
35) Accounting (the finances of major governing bodies in squash are completely transparent)
36) Income and expenditure (baseball/softball)
37) Ability to share venues with other sports (squash or wrestling)
38) Technological requirements and costs to host Olympic competition (squash or wrestling)
If my analysis above is even close to accurate, you can determine why wrestling got voted out. It is not a modern sport capable of enthralling massive crowds and bringing in large TV audiences, certainly not when compared to other Olympic sports. It does not have a membership or medal winners that are as geographically diverse as squash. Nor is wrestling considered gender neutral. If ‘value added’ is the most important criteria and if the IOC really wants more spectators, sponsorships and TV viewers, then baseball/softball is the obvious choice. Baseball has loads of commercial appeal and is likely to bring in more net revenue than the other two sports. If all the IOC is purely looking for is the bottom line result, then they should quickly vote baseball/softball into 2020. The American TV audience will pave the way in dollars and totally vindicate the decision. Just like they certainly will for golf starting in Rio in 2016 and maybe even the highly entertaining sport of rugby sevens too.
However, if the IOC want a sport that will be followed and viewed by almost every nation around the world, a sport that has integrity and embodies the Olympic ideals of representativeness, inclusiveness, gender-neutrality and fairness, then it should vote for squash.
Thank goodness it is not the IOC Board that decides which sport gets into 2020, it is the broader IOC membership of over one hundred members. This means that, owing to the law of large numbers (probability theory), we are more likely to get a proper result. A proper result would be to vote the single new sport on the shortlist into the Olympics; and then go change the Olympic charter to allow pre-existing sports back in based on merit, i.e. the amount of time and effort they have put in to changing their sport to make it suit a Modern Olympic Games.
Jacque Rogge himself stated that the three sports on the shortlist would have to work hard to convince the IOC to vote for them on September 8th in Argentina. If this decision was simply awarded to the sport that had ‘worked hardest’ to be there then every single member of the IOC should vote for squash. Squash has never been in the Olympic program and has been working very hard to get in for a decade now. Everyone knows that. Wrestling has been working on their Olympic product for four months, but no longer than that. I am not sure baseball has ever even tried.
In the final analysis, the influence of Mr. Rogge may be substantially lessened owing to the fact that he is the outgoing president. The broader IOC membership needs to carefully consider all of the criteria prior to their vote and not be overly influenced by only one or two factors. I hope that the new president revamps the whole process and allows new sports into the Games. A self imposed cap by the IOC on the number of sporting federations cannot be used as the reason not to include great global sports in the Olympics, like squash, and wrestling for that matter. Clearly an Olympic gold medal would be the biggest prize for any athlete competing in either of these two sports.
One can only hope that the IOC members ultimately vote with both their heads and their hearts and make a good decision in September.
In the final analysis, the influence of Mr. Rogge may be substantially lessened owing to the fact that he is the outgoing president. The broader IOC membership needs to carefully consider all of the criteria prior to their vote and not be overly influenced by only one or two factors. I hope that the new president revamps the whole process and allows new sports into the Games. A self imposed cap by the IOC on the number of sporting federations cannot be used as the reason not to include great global sports in the Olympics, like squash, and wrestling for that matter. Clearly an Olympic gold medal would be the biggest prize for any athlete competing in either of these two sports.
One can only hope that the IOC members ultimately vote with both their heads and their hearts and make a good decision in September.
Entry of July 2013: 'Squash and the Olympics. Part Five'
Which sport is the best choice for the 2020 Olympics? The answer is obvious to me. As is probably evident by now I have done a lot of research on this topic, not out of any obligation, but because I am fascinated by how the process works and also because I think that the sport of squash deserves to be more popular than it is. So, please indulge me again whilst this squash blog temporarily becomes a blog about the Olympics.
The IOC members will select a new leader for their organization in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in six weeks from now. They will also select a new sport for the 2020 Olympics and decide which of Istanbul, Madrid, or Tokyo will host those Games. This last choice is a particularly difficult one, given the civil unrest currently occurring in Turkey and Brazil. These demonstrations appear to be related to the cost these countries are incurring to upgrade their infrastructure in anticipation of, amongst other things, the Olympic Games. Rio is hosting the Summer Games in 2016 and Istanbul hopes to host in 2020. The high cost of the proposed public projects, like building another bridge in Istanbul between the east and west, have outraged the Turkish populous at a time when austerity measures are in effect owing to the recent debt crisis. At the same time, there are riots in Brazil because the government there has committed to spending billons of dollars on upgrading their infrastructure prior to hosting the Summer Olympics in 2016 (and the soccer World Cup next year). In order to fund these, they have increased the cost of basic public goods and services, e.g. bus fare. Of course, this is not fair to the general population, they did not apply to host the Olympics but, in some ways for certain, they are being made to pay for it.
Given this violent backlash to government spending, the issue of finances will and should weigh heavily on the minds of the IOC members when they travel to neighboring Argentina in September to cast their votes on 2020. The IOC seems to be doing everything they can to assist the host country in properly preparing for the Games, but along with the honor of hosting comes the requirement for the host country to make financial commitments to the IOC, long before the athletic competitions begin, which guarantee that the Games will be a success. So, you may be curious to know how the host country finances all this. Well, theoretically, they recoup many of the dollars spent through revenues from the Games but the net result is that country will have spent boatloads of money and be deep in the red, whilst the TV networks, the sports federations and the IOC itself will make money. That’s how it normally goes anyway. This has led to real doubts about the future of the IOC organization itself. It is clear that the Games needs to modernize and become more appealing to a television audience. When the IOC sold the US television broadcasting rights to NBC for 4.38 billion dollars it essentially guaranteed the immediate future of the Olympics. But why did NBC pay so much? Well, simply because the London 2012 Games were the single most watched event in US television history and NBC are betting that this trend will continue and they will earn a future profit from the deal.
So, in order to understand the financial concerns a little better, I started following the money trail. The main source of revenue for the IOC comes from broadcasting fees paid by television companies around the world to the IOC for the rights to footage of the Games. Only a finite number of people can travel to the Games and watch it live, many of the events are at capacity when it comes to spectator seating, but the number of viewers who can watch remotely is only limited by the number of viewing devices in the world. Considering the expenses side of the equation, why are the Olympics so costly to run? Well, the considerable cost of security is the biggest unknown factor. Security related costs were out of control in London for various reasons, I cannot imagine what they will amount to in Rio. Another factor is the number of athletes and officials that participate in the Games. The IOC recognize this and have put limits on the number of events and the number of athletes that are allowed to compete. In a recent vote regarding adding new disciplines under the banner of existing federations, all of the suggested disciplines were denied. The primary reason quoted was the increase in cost. Clearly the IOC are mindful of the financial impact of their decisions. At this point it may be worth noting that the number of participants for wrestling at the 2012 Olympics was 344 and for baseball and softball combined in prior Olympics there were even more than that number. In contrast, for squash there would be only 64 competitors in total - 32 men and 32 women. When factoring in the number of officials required for each of these three sports the ratios look even more favorable for squash.
Let us revisit the notion of visual appeal. Why would more than half the world's population tune in and watch the Games? Not just for Rio 2016 and again in 2020, but for many subsequent years to come. Clearly, viewers are interested in watching sports that are exciting and visually appealing. And they want to be able to understand the sport which they are watching. Golf is not a stereotypical Olympic sport but it has been included for Rio 2016. All in all, it is relatively easy to understand golf - the ball gets hit toward the hole and when it’s in you are done and the players move on to the next hole. You don’t need to play golf to understand it; the basic rules of the game are not complicated. Golf will be a big hit. The other sport which beat squash onto the Olympic sports program 4 years ago, rugby sevens, should also be a big hit. It is a great spectator sport and has actually become a fairly popular college sport in the US. Many of the rugby tournaments are currently televised. The IOC will very likely get good ‘bang for their buck’ when it comes to those two sports, in terms of the positive effect they will have on the Games and the resulting revenue. Clearly broadcasting revenues from golf are high and the marginal cost of adding it is low, given the small number of athletes that will play in the Olympic competition and the fact that the broadcasting of the sport is already well established and the cost structures are known. Now that I have researched it further, the IOC decision to include those two sports for Rio 2016, at the expense of other sports, logically makes more sense. I can see how it was a wise decision to make at the time.
The IOC have made a lot of sensible decisions. There is a company called Olympic Broadcasting Services ("OBS") that was formed by the IOC whose sole purpose is to coordinate the broadcasting of Olympic events. They are a team of hundreds of professionals who are on site during every step of the Olympic Games in order to ensure that the television product which is produced is the best it can be and OBS thereby makes good on their contractual promise to the various networks around the world who receive the raw footage. The networks then edit the footage to create programming that is appealing to their domestic audiences. During the 2012 Olympics, you might remember how NBC was criticized for airing some events live and others not? It is at the discretion of NBC as to how it uses the hundreds of hours of footage produced by OBS. NBC is under pressure to make a profit on the billions of dollars they have spent to acquire the sole rights to all the Olympic footage from the next four Olympic Games. If NBC were deciding which of the cities to choose they would go for Madrid so that they can show many of the events live during the day in the US, since Spain is the closest time zone to the US. And if they were deciding on a sport they would clearly go for baseball/softball as this would almost guarantee them a profit from the deal. Baseball is America's pastime and it is the most popular spectator sport in the US.
But there is no constraint on Major League Baseball ("MLB") like there is on the IOC. The Olympic Games organizers have only a few weeks and probably one venue in which to get all the baseball and softball games played. So it will be tough to include them all given the time and space contraints. But the real problem with baseball/softball does not lie in the logistics, it lies in the fact that the best players would not be at the Olympics beacuse they would not be able dishonor their professional contracts with the MLB by taking an extended break from the league mid season. Bud Selig, Commissioner of the MLB, even said publicly that there is no way the Major League season in the US can be put on hold for the Olympics. Given that, how likely would it be that the American TV audience would tune in to watch Cuba beat Venezuela in the finals because all the top MLB stars aren’t even competing?
Wrestling and squash do not have that problem. Winning an Olympic Gold medal in either of those sports will be the pinnacle of achievement and certainly the best players in the world will show up. Or would they? Some of the top wrestlers may boycott the Games because of the rule changes proposed by FILA, wrestling’s international governing body. And there has been a pretty big backlash from the wrestling community over the proposed new rules. The IOC have pressured FILA to change their sport in order to make it easier for a viewer to understand. If you have never wrestled it is impossible to know what is going on, and even if you have it is hard to follow. For instance, there is still much debate on the USA Wrestling forum about all the style and rule changes. The point is, wrestling has a long way to go in order to figure out how to broadcast the sport properly and achieve better TV ratings, or any TV ratings. Even some world champion wrestlers and Olympic gold medalist wrestlers acknowledge that.
Another even larger problem with wrestling is that the two disciplines which are competed in the Olympics are not the most popular versions of the sport, and I am not referring to WWE, which I don't believe wrestling is associated with. The FILA videos page does show mostly Mixed Martial Arts ("MMA") though. This appears to be the most entertaining version of the sport, aside from WWE and UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships). I guess the point is that MMA, and similarly UFC, are more understandable and more entertaining to watch - and the broadcasting of these has certainly been worked out. UFC is a phenomenaly popular spectator sport in the US and has made billionaires of the founders. If FILA want to make an impression on the Olympics why not propose MMA as a discipline to be included in the Olympic Games? If you don’t think I am right, just go to YouTube and search for 'wrestling' and see what comes up. Then do the same search for 'squash'.
So that may leave one to wonder why exactly would squash be a good addition to the Summer Games? Well, it is a sport that would be able to be included at low cost and also be broadcast well. There is a professional team at SquashTV that emulates OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Services) and travels to all the events to ensure a consistent well-made visual product is produced. Think about the success of beach volleyball in London last year. The sport was placed in an iconic location and became one of the great success stories. Why? Because the sport is easily understood, fun to watch and it is also very hard or impossible for the athletes to cheat. Squash could emulate beach volleyball well. It is gender neutral, it can be staged in iconic locations, there would be a limited number of athletes; and opportunities to broadcast the game and make it an exciting television product already exist today. Squash has already come a long way with technological and broadcasting innovations, just imagine where we will be in 2020. Should we continue making progress and fully embrace the technology currently used in golf and tennis then squash would make for a great visual spectacle, and it would be very easy to understand. There is no mystery when the ball is hit out or when it bounces twice before being struck. High definition cameras will capture it all and replay the points in slow motion from various camera angles. There is very little subjectivity in squash with the video reviews. The opportunity for referees to get it wrong or for players to cheat is reduced to almost nothing, just like beach volleyball. And that will be a good thing for the Olympics, considering all the scandals of late.
Which brings me to my final point of differentiation between squash and many other sports – the issue of performace enhancing drugs. How many times has the Olympic brand been tarnished by drug cheaters? The drug scandals hang like a dark cloud over the Olympics and, after the financial concerns, will surely be the second most important issue on the minds of the IOC when they cast their final vote in Buenos Aires. At every version of the Games the number of athletes who stand on a podium and receive an Olympic medal only to fail a subsequent drug test and have the medal stripped seems to be increasing by the minute. In the last eleven editions of the Summer Olympics well over one hundred athletes (including seven in wrestling and two in baseball) have won medals and then had them stripped owing to failing post competition drug tests. If the IOC want to ensure the importance and relevance of the Olympics in everyone’s lives they have to seriously consider the consequences of drug scandals associated with Olympic athletes. Viewers are uninspired when they see an athlete win only to have the medal stripped away later on. This hurts the Olympic brand and will cost the organization in the long run because nobody wants to see cheaters win. It makes a mockery of everyone.
Considering ethics, think about the fact that squash has never had a medal recipient stripped of their award owing to failing a drug test post competition. In fact, if you take a look at the latest IOC review document it is quite clear that squash is 100% WADA compliant and has a clean bill of health. There are only two documented cases of professional squash players ever being suspended from international competition for drug taking - ansd these were both for recreational not performance enhancing drugs. This statistic should not be all that surprising, because taking performance enhancing drugs would not really help you as a squash player. Similarly to tennis, at the highest levels of the game the primary determinants of who wins or loses a squash match are skill and strategy. All the top athletes are extremely fit and they can all play at a high intensity for a long period of time. At the highest levels of the sport, the player who wins is almost always the better player on the day of the match, not the fitter or stronger player. So performance enhancing drugs will never determine the outcome of a squash tournament, and the players have no incentive to take performance enhancing drugs. Again, this applies only at the highest levels of the sport, as clearly at an amateur level fitness has a lot to do with who wins a squash match.
There are other ways in which squash is very fair. The referees of a squash match generally have very little influence on the outcome. This is not the case for every Olympic sport. With the introduction of video replays during squash matches it would be almost impossible to hide behind faults that would otherwise not be caught by the naked eye of the referees. In fact, squash players routinely call their own faults. So the only people who determine the outcome of a squash match are the two players out there on the court giving it their all. They would have worked hard for years in order to master their craft and get to that position. Squash is easy to play but it is very hard to play well. Walking onto a squash court and hitting the ball is easy and is available to almost everyone no matter who they are or where they are. The sport is truly global. Male and female players have equal opportunities. You can be old or young and enjoy the sport. The game can be played by everyone. It is a game for anyone. Potentially anyone who watches the sport on TV in 2020 would be inspired by what they see and they can simply go to their local courts and hit a squash ball.
Having said all that, the most inspiring thing might just be the character of the squash players themselves. You would see the best players in the world killing themselves on court for every point they win. And they would be calling their own shots down that hit the tin and calling their own double bounces. The referees won’t know what is going on (until they see the video replay) but the players would know. One player would admit to his error and hand the ball to his or her opponent, and that opponent would acknowledge the honesty of their adversary in a fleeting yet gracious moment. And these moments would happen in the heat of battle by which time both players are physcially and mentally exhausted but are still doing everything within their power to win the match fairly. It will show sportsmanship at its finest. We have seen many of the world’s best squash players do this routinely over the years in the biggest matches at the most critical times. And the best part about it is these scenes will be broadcast on screens around the world in super high definition slow-motion replays. These moments will only have to happen once or twice in a match in order for them to make the highlights reel on NBC Sports. And Bob Costas, NBC’s pre-eminent sportscaster for the Olympics, probably won’t stop talking about how great squash is. Soon after that the integrity, confidence and courage of our top players will be highlighted.
Combine the skill and determination required to be the best at squash with an incredibly strong sense of ethics, and you have something that is the epitome of an Olympic sport, whether or not we compete for Olympic Gold someday. And that is something we all need to remember and always be proud of, no matter which way the September 8th decision goes.
The IOC members will select a new leader for their organization in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in six weeks from now. They will also select a new sport for the 2020 Olympics and decide which of Istanbul, Madrid, or Tokyo will host those Games. This last choice is a particularly difficult one, given the civil unrest currently occurring in Turkey and Brazil. These demonstrations appear to be related to the cost these countries are incurring to upgrade their infrastructure in anticipation of, amongst other things, the Olympic Games. Rio is hosting the Summer Games in 2016 and Istanbul hopes to host in 2020. The high cost of the proposed public projects, like building another bridge in Istanbul between the east and west, have outraged the Turkish populous at a time when austerity measures are in effect owing to the recent debt crisis. At the same time, there are riots in Brazil because the government there has committed to spending billons of dollars on upgrading their infrastructure prior to hosting the Summer Olympics in 2016 (and the soccer World Cup next year). In order to fund these, they have increased the cost of basic public goods and services, e.g. bus fare. Of course, this is not fair to the general population, they did not apply to host the Olympics but, in some ways for certain, they are being made to pay for it.
Given this violent backlash to government spending, the issue of finances will and should weigh heavily on the minds of the IOC members when they travel to neighboring Argentina in September to cast their votes on 2020. The IOC seems to be doing everything they can to assist the host country in properly preparing for the Games, but along with the honor of hosting comes the requirement for the host country to make financial commitments to the IOC, long before the athletic competitions begin, which guarantee that the Games will be a success. So, you may be curious to know how the host country finances all this. Well, theoretically, they recoup many of the dollars spent through revenues from the Games but the net result is that country will have spent boatloads of money and be deep in the red, whilst the TV networks, the sports federations and the IOC itself will make money. That’s how it normally goes anyway. This has led to real doubts about the future of the IOC organization itself. It is clear that the Games needs to modernize and become more appealing to a television audience. When the IOC sold the US television broadcasting rights to NBC for 4.38 billion dollars it essentially guaranteed the immediate future of the Olympics. But why did NBC pay so much? Well, simply because the London 2012 Games were the single most watched event in US television history and NBC are betting that this trend will continue and they will earn a future profit from the deal.
So, in order to understand the financial concerns a little better, I started following the money trail. The main source of revenue for the IOC comes from broadcasting fees paid by television companies around the world to the IOC for the rights to footage of the Games. Only a finite number of people can travel to the Games and watch it live, many of the events are at capacity when it comes to spectator seating, but the number of viewers who can watch remotely is only limited by the number of viewing devices in the world. Considering the expenses side of the equation, why are the Olympics so costly to run? Well, the considerable cost of security is the biggest unknown factor. Security related costs were out of control in London for various reasons, I cannot imagine what they will amount to in Rio. Another factor is the number of athletes and officials that participate in the Games. The IOC recognize this and have put limits on the number of events and the number of athletes that are allowed to compete. In a recent vote regarding adding new disciplines under the banner of existing federations, all of the suggested disciplines were denied. The primary reason quoted was the increase in cost. Clearly the IOC are mindful of the financial impact of their decisions. At this point it may be worth noting that the number of participants for wrestling at the 2012 Olympics was 344 and for baseball and softball combined in prior Olympics there were even more than that number. In contrast, for squash there would be only 64 competitors in total - 32 men and 32 women. When factoring in the number of officials required for each of these three sports the ratios look even more favorable for squash.
Let us revisit the notion of visual appeal. Why would more than half the world's population tune in and watch the Games? Not just for Rio 2016 and again in 2020, but for many subsequent years to come. Clearly, viewers are interested in watching sports that are exciting and visually appealing. And they want to be able to understand the sport which they are watching. Golf is not a stereotypical Olympic sport but it has been included for Rio 2016. All in all, it is relatively easy to understand golf - the ball gets hit toward the hole and when it’s in you are done and the players move on to the next hole. You don’t need to play golf to understand it; the basic rules of the game are not complicated. Golf will be a big hit. The other sport which beat squash onto the Olympic sports program 4 years ago, rugby sevens, should also be a big hit. It is a great spectator sport and has actually become a fairly popular college sport in the US. Many of the rugby tournaments are currently televised. The IOC will very likely get good ‘bang for their buck’ when it comes to those two sports, in terms of the positive effect they will have on the Games and the resulting revenue. Clearly broadcasting revenues from golf are high and the marginal cost of adding it is low, given the small number of athletes that will play in the Olympic competition and the fact that the broadcasting of the sport is already well established and the cost structures are known. Now that I have researched it further, the IOC decision to include those two sports for Rio 2016, at the expense of other sports, logically makes more sense. I can see how it was a wise decision to make at the time.
The IOC have made a lot of sensible decisions. There is a company called Olympic Broadcasting Services ("OBS") that was formed by the IOC whose sole purpose is to coordinate the broadcasting of Olympic events. They are a team of hundreds of professionals who are on site during every step of the Olympic Games in order to ensure that the television product which is produced is the best it can be and OBS thereby makes good on their contractual promise to the various networks around the world who receive the raw footage. The networks then edit the footage to create programming that is appealing to their domestic audiences. During the 2012 Olympics, you might remember how NBC was criticized for airing some events live and others not? It is at the discretion of NBC as to how it uses the hundreds of hours of footage produced by OBS. NBC is under pressure to make a profit on the billions of dollars they have spent to acquire the sole rights to all the Olympic footage from the next four Olympic Games. If NBC were deciding which of the cities to choose they would go for Madrid so that they can show many of the events live during the day in the US, since Spain is the closest time zone to the US. And if they were deciding on a sport they would clearly go for baseball/softball as this would almost guarantee them a profit from the deal. Baseball is America's pastime and it is the most popular spectator sport in the US.
But there is no constraint on Major League Baseball ("MLB") like there is on the IOC. The Olympic Games organizers have only a few weeks and probably one venue in which to get all the baseball and softball games played. So it will be tough to include them all given the time and space contraints. But the real problem with baseball/softball does not lie in the logistics, it lies in the fact that the best players would not be at the Olympics beacuse they would not be able dishonor their professional contracts with the MLB by taking an extended break from the league mid season. Bud Selig, Commissioner of the MLB, even said publicly that there is no way the Major League season in the US can be put on hold for the Olympics. Given that, how likely would it be that the American TV audience would tune in to watch Cuba beat Venezuela in the finals because all the top MLB stars aren’t even competing?
Wrestling and squash do not have that problem. Winning an Olympic Gold medal in either of those sports will be the pinnacle of achievement and certainly the best players in the world will show up. Or would they? Some of the top wrestlers may boycott the Games because of the rule changes proposed by FILA, wrestling’s international governing body. And there has been a pretty big backlash from the wrestling community over the proposed new rules. The IOC have pressured FILA to change their sport in order to make it easier for a viewer to understand. If you have never wrestled it is impossible to know what is going on, and even if you have it is hard to follow. For instance, there is still much debate on the USA Wrestling forum about all the style and rule changes. The point is, wrestling has a long way to go in order to figure out how to broadcast the sport properly and achieve better TV ratings, or any TV ratings. Even some world champion wrestlers and Olympic gold medalist wrestlers acknowledge that.
Another even larger problem with wrestling is that the two disciplines which are competed in the Olympics are not the most popular versions of the sport, and I am not referring to WWE, which I don't believe wrestling is associated with. The FILA videos page does show mostly Mixed Martial Arts ("MMA") though. This appears to be the most entertaining version of the sport, aside from WWE and UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships). I guess the point is that MMA, and similarly UFC, are more understandable and more entertaining to watch - and the broadcasting of these has certainly been worked out. UFC is a phenomenaly popular spectator sport in the US and has made billionaires of the founders. If FILA want to make an impression on the Olympics why not propose MMA as a discipline to be included in the Olympic Games? If you don’t think I am right, just go to YouTube and search for 'wrestling' and see what comes up. Then do the same search for 'squash'.
So that may leave one to wonder why exactly would squash be a good addition to the Summer Games? Well, it is a sport that would be able to be included at low cost and also be broadcast well. There is a professional team at SquashTV that emulates OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Services) and travels to all the events to ensure a consistent well-made visual product is produced. Think about the success of beach volleyball in London last year. The sport was placed in an iconic location and became one of the great success stories. Why? Because the sport is easily understood, fun to watch and it is also very hard or impossible for the athletes to cheat. Squash could emulate beach volleyball well. It is gender neutral, it can be staged in iconic locations, there would be a limited number of athletes; and opportunities to broadcast the game and make it an exciting television product already exist today. Squash has already come a long way with technological and broadcasting innovations, just imagine where we will be in 2020. Should we continue making progress and fully embrace the technology currently used in golf and tennis then squash would make for a great visual spectacle, and it would be very easy to understand. There is no mystery when the ball is hit out or when it bounces twice before being struck. High definition cameras will capture it all and replay the points in slow motion from various camera angles. There is very little subjectivity in squash with the video reviews. The opportunity for referees to get it wrong or for players to cheat is reduced to almost nothing, just like beach volleyball. And that will be a good thing for the Olympics, considering all the scandals of late.
Which brings me to my final point of differentiation between squash and many other sports – the issue of performace enhancing drugs. How many times has the Olympic brand been tarnished by drug cheaters? The drug scandals hang like a dark cloud over the Olympics and, after the financial concerns, will surely be the second most important issue on the minds of the IOC when they cast their final vote in Buenos Aires. At every version of the Games the number of athletes who stand on a podium and receive an Olympic medal only to fail a subsequent drug test and have the medal stripped seems to be increasing by the minute. In the last eleven editions of the Summer Olympics well over one hundred athletes (including seven in wrestling and two in baseball) have won medals and then had them stripped owing to failing post competition drug tests. If the IOC want to ensure the importance and relevance of the Olympics in everyone’s lives they have to seriously consider the consequences of drug scandals associated with Olympic athletes. Viewers are uninspired when they see an athlete win only to have the medal stripped away later on. This hurts the Olympic brand and will cost the organization in the long run because nobody wants to see cheaters win. It makes a mockery of everyone.
Considering ethics, think about the fact that squash has never had a medal recipient stripped of their award owing to failing a drug test post competition. In fact, if you take a look at the latest IOC review document it is quite clear that squash is 100% WADA compliant and has a clean bill of health. There are only two documented cases of professional squash players ever being suspended from international competition for drug taking - ansd these were both for recreational not performance enhancing drugs. This statistic should not be all that surprising, because taking performance enhancing drugs would not really help you as a squash player. Similarly to tennis, at the highest levels of the game the primary determinants of who wins or loses a squash match are skill and strategy. All the top athletes are extremely fit and they can all play at a high intensity for a long period of time. At the highest levels of the sport, the player who wins is almost always the better player on the day of the match, not the fitter or stronger player. So performance enhancing drugs will never determine the outcome of a squash tournament, and the players have no incentive to take performance enhancing drugs. Again, this applies only at the highest levels of the sport, as clearly at an amateur level fitness has a lot to do with who wins a squash match.
There are other ways in which squash is very fair. The referees of a squash match generally have very little influence on the outcome. This is not the case for every Olympic sport. With the introduction of video replays during squash matches it would be almost impossible to hide behind faults that would otherwise not be caught by the naked eye of the referees. In fact, squash players routinely call their own faults. So the only people who determine the outcome of a squash match are the two players out there on the court giving it their all. They would have worked hard for years in order to master their craft and get to that position. Squash is easy to play but it is very hard to play well. Walking onto a squash court and hitting the ball is easy and is available to almost everyone no matter who they are or where they are. The sport is truly global. Male and female players have equal opportunities. You can be old or young and enjoy the sport. The game can be played by everyone. It is a game for anyone. Potentially anyone who watches the sport on TV in 2020 would be inspired by what they see and they can simply go to their local courts and hit a squash ball.
Having said all that, the most inspiring thing might just be the character of the squash players themselves. You would see the best players in the world killing themselves on court for every point they win. And they would be calling their own shots down that hit the tin and calling their own double bounces. The referees won’t know what is going on (until they see the video replay) but the players would know. One player would admit to his error and hand the ball to his or her opponent, and that opponent would acknowledge the honesty of their adversary in a fleeting yet gracious moment. And these moments would happen in the heat of battle by which time both players are physcially and mentally exhausted but are still doing everything within their power to win the match fairly. It will show sportsmanship at its finest. We have seen many of the world’s best squash players do this routinely over the years in the biggest matches at the most critical times. And the best part about it is these scenes will be broadcast on screens around the world in super high definition slow-motion replays. These moments will only have to happen once or twice in a match in order for them to make the highlights reel on NBC Sports. And Bob Costas, NBC’s pre-eminent sportscaster for the Olympics, probably won’t stop talking about how great squash is. Soon after that the integrity, confidence and courage of our top players will be highlighted.
Combine the skill and determination required to be the best at squash with an incredibly strong sense of ethics, and you have something that is the epitome of an Olympic sport, whether or not we compete for Olympic Gold someday. And that is something we all need to remember and always be proud of, no matter which way the September 8th decision goes.
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| Olympic Gold medalist Andre Agassi wanted squash voted in for 2020 |
Entry of September 2013: 'Squash and the Olympics, Part Six'
In order for a new sport to get voted into the Olympics, first it needs to be recognized by the Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF), a sister organization to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This body essentially monitors the 'B list' of sports that are not in the Olympics but perhaps could be. They facilitate a big convention on a regular basis called SportAccord. Delegates from all of the member federations of the B list sports (e.g. squash, karate, bowling, motorcycling, surfing) come to these conventions to showcase their sports and share ideas with others and attempt to get the visibility that is required in order to get onto the Olympic A list.
How this appears to happen is the IOC appoints a working group (referred to as the Olympic Program Commission) of IOC officials and members to talk with the ARISF and attend SportAccord and review the candidate sports over a period of time. This working group then comes up with a recommendation for which sports to consider for inclusion in the Games, and which to not consider. They followed this approach with the choice of cities and prepared a report that essentially ranked their choices for which city should host the 2020 Summer Games.
The fifteen person IOC Executive Board then meets to review the working group proposals. The Board votes for which city or sport in a blind ballot and then this decision needs to get ratified in a vote by the broader IOC session where around one hundred individuals will vote (the representatives of the sports being voted on are disqualified from voting). The IOC session comprises over one hundred individuals that are primarily the heads of the Olympic committee from all the major participating countries, as well as the heads of the various international sporting federations, amongst a few others (honorary members).
In 2005 at the meeting of the fifteen person Board in which they decided upon whether or not to include new sports for the London Olympics, both squash and karate obtained the requisite majority vote in that meeting in order to be added to the Games. This decision then needed to be ratified by the broader one hundred person IOC session. A majority of votes at this session is required in order to vote a new sports federation (e.g. the World Squash Federation) into the IOC and hence, effectively, make its sport a part of the Games. At the session in 2005 where squash and karate were decided upon, a two thirds majority of the approximately one hundred attendees was required in order to ratify the prior decision of the Board to include those two sports. As it turned out, both squash and karate got the majority vote (greater than 50%), but neither won a two thirds majority at the general session so neither Board decision got ratified. Remember, this was already after the IOC Executive Board had voted those two sports in. A sad and embarrassing situation indeed.
It is not surprising that the Board voted squash in as the sport is relatively well represented. Three of the fifteen Board members list squash as a sport they play. I checked on this and it makes sense. One of them went to St. Andrews University in Scotland and another went to Oxford in England, both are institutions where squash is a well known sport and is played by many students. The third member is president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, whose headquarters happen to be a short walk from a wonderful club in Howth - the beautiful northern peninsula of Dublin Bay - where this gentleman quite likely plays his squash, and his tennis. The fact that Jacques Rogge, the president of the IOC, played rugby for his country of Belgium means he too would have been exposed to the game of squash. The two sports of squash and rugby often go hand in hand. Many rugby players play squash to supplement their fitness work off the pitch and the clubs are often combined in some way. Squash is a good way to keep fit for rugby but avoid the high risk of injury that comes with actually playing rugby. This leads me to the circumstances during the subsequent decision for the 2016 Games.
The sports voted in for 2016 were golf and rugby sevens. There are a few things that are quite notable about this. 1) The president of the IOC is obviously a rugby supporter and, based on subsequent press releases, was clearly delighted with the decision. Note that the president does not get a vote on the sports decision, so rugby sevens was voted in by the other fourteen members of the board (who are not influenced by the president at all). 2) The two sports federations in question, the International Rugby Board and International Golf Federation, had been previously voted out of the IOC. Rugby in 1924 and golf in 1904. 3) The only reason two new sports got in for 2016 was because baseball and softball got kicked out, something which also does not happen very often either (only fourteen sports in the history of the Summer Olympics). 4) Between the time that squash and karate missed out (because of the two thirds majority requirement) the rules were changed and only a simple majority (50%) of votes at the IOC session was needed to get rugby sevens and golf confirmed, so these two sports had an easier path in. A tough break for squash and karate because they had both achieved the 50% majority at the previous IOC session. If this lowered hurdle was brought into effect slightly earlier, squash and karate would have replaced baseball and softball in the Olympics.
So, looking forward to next year when the whole process likely repeats itself: The SportAccord convention is in St Petersburg, Russia at the end of May. The IOC session is in Buenos Aires, Argentina in September 2013. Voting on which sports to include or exclude is not offically on the agenda for this IOC session yet, but it will be if the Board members make a decision themselves regarding the sports program and require ratification thereof. So sometime around July next year the Board will hopefully meet and review the outcome of SportAccord, listen to the valuable input of the ARISF and consider the recommendations of the internal working group (aka the Olympic Program Commission). The IOC is not required to review the Olympic sports program at fixed intervals, but does do this periodically. It sounds like they will be doing this next year. The Olympic Program Commission is responsible for reviewing and analysing the program of sports, disciplines and events, as well as the number of athletes in each sport. The Commission will make recommendations in this regard to the IOC Executive Board who then vote on what changes they want to make, or don't want to make.
If the fact that we are pretty much completely at the mercy of the IOC Executive Board is not enough bad news, this next piece of information is the real kick in the pants... so you may want to sit down for this one. Years ago the IOC decided to limit the number of member federations to twenty eight, and, with golf and rugby sevens on the A list, they are now at that limit. What this means is that in order for a new sport to be added either 1) the Olympic Charter itself will have to be changed to increase the potential number of member federations or 2) one of the existing twenty eight federations will have to get kicked out of the IOC to make place for a new member. And changing the Olympic Charter to increase the number of sports will require not a simple majority of 50%, but rather this change will require a two thirds majority vote at the IOC session. Can you believe our luck? We missed the cut previously because of the swing vote of a small handful of no more than fifteen IOC members who did not think that the sport was ready for the Games (or just did not know enough about it), and now we will potentially be reliant on that same small group in order to get in for 2020. Who knows how much resistance there will be to changing the Olympic charter, it won’t be insignificant though I am sure. The odds are stacked against us and the path of least resistance for a new sport to get into the Olympics would, unfortunately, most likely be if one of the existing sports gets voted out.
(Author's note: Here is a 2013 update on this article after the IOC voted in Buenos Aires in September that year):
Well, squash theoretically got what it needed and a sporting federation was voted out of the IOC in February 2013. Unfortunately, FILA got voted right back in on September 8th. This potentially closed the door on squash as the Olympic Charter says there is a maximum of 28 sports (see rule 2.1.4). So the fastest way for squash to get in now, short of re-applying as per usual in four years time, is if 1) the Olympic Charter gets changed (not likely) or 2) the sports program is no longer tied to the 28 federations but focuses on individual disciplines/events (more likely).
I believe option 2 is what the new IOC president, Thomas Bach, is pushing for. In anticipation of being elected president, he wrote and distributed a 15 page manifesto entitled 'Unity in Diversty' to the IOC membership in June of this year. This document lays out how the sports program could be changed to accomodate new sports (by focusing on disciplines not sporting federations). Bach is an Olympic gold medalist himself and turned to sports administration after being denied the opportunity to compete in the Moscow 1980 Games - this was owing purely to politics and nothing else. So, Thomas Bach has spent much his career fighting for the rights of athletes. The day after being elected IOC president, Bach said in a BBC interview "I feel sorry for those sports (squash and baseball/softball) because you can see how much they did to develop their sport in the past, how much they changed and they gave excellent presentations...we should find a way of how we can stay in touch with these federations and how together we can bring them closer to the Olympic movement."
One of the obligations of the IOC president is to ensure that the Olympics 'continues to remain relevant in the world and changes for the better with the times'. This objective, along with the fact that Bach knows the pain of not being allowed to compete owing to politics, should see an evolution in the Olympic sports program. And that may prove to be good news for the sport of squash. Only time will tell.
It is out of our hands now.
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