Battle lines drawn as IOC plan changes

ATHLETICS: The Olympic Games winners and losers drew their battle lines this week as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced their recommended cuts and additions to the Beijing programme in 2008. Like the athletes, the event too is watching its weight.

The sports of athletics, sailing, equestrian and rowing, among others, have been told that they will probably have less categories of events in future games with golf and rugby sevens emerging as possible winners. Both have been recommended by the IOC Commission for admission to the 2008 Olympic programme.

The review was taken with 2004 in mind. The games in Athens, which will have 28 sports, 301 events and approximately 10,500 athletes, will be the first in 20 years where there has been no growth in numbers between Olympiads. The IOC wishes to retain this figure for the 2008 games as they see it as the optimum size.

In sailing the recommendation of the abolition of keeled boats will have a dramatic effect of Irish chances of medalling in Beijing. David O'Brien and Mark Mansfield competed in the keeled Star class in Sydney 2000. It was Mansfield's third successive games in this class and, currently ranked three in the world, he continues to be a strong contender to sail in Athens.

"We wouldn't be very happy about keeled boats being taken out," said Paddy Boyd, secretary of the IASA.

"Some of the world's best sailors race in the Star class including America's Cup sailors. The removal of this class would have a big impact on Irish sailing."

"The other keeled boat is the Yngling class, which was introduced in Athens. If they remove this they will have to redress the gender balance some other way as this is purely a women's event."

In rowing the Commission recommends the exclusion of lightweight events from the programme in order to "reduce athlete quotas" and the number of events.

All of Ireland's rowing successes have been in this grade including lightweight single sculling world champions Sam Lynch and Sinead Jennings and lightweight men's pair Tony O'Connor and Gearoid Towey.

"It's early days in this whole thing," says Irish team manger Michael O'Callaghan. "Obviously we have been successful at lightweight level and we'll fight to have them retained but we're also working in other divisions. Sean Drea (4th in Montreal in 1976) was in an open class. We'll have to adapt and we'll have to become more competitive.

"In the heavier class the men are six foot two or six foot three inches and the women are around six feet. But we have plenty of people of that stature in Ireland."

The Athletics Association of Ireland, who currently have two exceptional walkers in Gillian O'Sullivan and Robert Heffernan, have been asked to accept the removal of race walking in the future games because of "judging difficulties" and "poor image of the event."

"Athletics Ireland have adopted a positive attitude to race walking and have developed strong walkers. We'd be totally opposed to it being taken out of the Olympics," said AAI executive officer Patsy McGonagle.

"We've two very good walkers at the moment and while I understand some of what the IOC are saying, we, as an association, would have to be very strong in the defence of walking."

Panels Exclusion of sports not currently in Olympics: Roller sports; Polo; Surfing; Bridge; Chess; Air sports; Billiards; Boules; Dance sport; Bowling; Racquetball; Water skiing; Squash; Underwater sports; Women's boxing; Aerobics.

Exclusion of sports currently in Olympics: Baseball; Modern pentathlon; Softball.

Exclusion of disciplines currently in Olympics: Canoe-kayak slalom; Equestrian-Eventing; Wrestling-one discipline; Athletics-race walking; Sailing-keelboat events; Synchronised swimming-team event; Shooting-reduction of athletes and events; Rowing-exclusion of lightweight events.

Recommended for inclusion in 2008 Olympics: Golf; Rugby Sevens.

Eventing, which has been a part of the Olympics since their inception in 1912, is also on the IOC hit-list for possible removal before the Beijing Games in 2008. In its recommendation that the sport should no longer be part of the Olympic movement, the IOC programme commission cites the high costs of building the cross-country course and the large amount of land required as the main reasons for the decision, but "danger for athletes and horses" was also noted as a factor following a series of high profile deaths in the sport during 1998 and '99.

Decisions on the inclusion and exclusion of sports will officially not be finalised until the next IOC meeting in Mexico at the end of November, but ratification of the decision on eventing may now be deferred until next March.

Mike Etherington-Smith, a member of the international equestrian federation three-day event committee and technical delegate for the Athens Games, has already been out to the Beijing site to inspect the facilities.

"While we knew that this was an issue, we'd no idea that it was being discussed at such a high level", he said yesterday.

"We're going to have to battle this in a serious way, because the implications are horrendous." New Zealand's Blyth Tait, Olympic champion in Atlanta six years ago, also called for action.

"We can't say we haven't seen it coming, we should have been better prepared. We have to be pro-active from now on to make sure the sport stays in the Olympics. The problem is that the non-equestrian nations don't want the expense of building a facility they're never going to use again."

Australia's Andrew Hoy, who has three team gold and an individual silver in his Olympic medal collection, refuted Tait's view, however. "It's up to the designers to design a facility that can be used again", he said. "It's a legacy to the host nation. Los Angeles, Barcelona and Atlanta are all used as golf courses and Sydney easily could be. After all, we do the steeplechase at Burghley on the golf course, so it doesn't have to be a purpose-built venue."

The international equestrian federation's three-day event committee, which is chaired by Australian Wayne Roycroft, has convened an emergency meeting at Heathrow airport this evening to discuss the situation and it is expected that there will be concerted efforts to lobby against the proposal.

The format of the Olympic three-day event was substantially changed after the Barcelona Games in 1992 when Dick Pound, the Canadian delegate on the IOC, said the sport was elitist and called for its removal from the Games.

The team and individual competitions were separated for Atlanta and Sydney when the IOC objected to two sets of medals being awarded for a single performance and further change has already been agreed for Athens, with the two-round show jumping that was tried out at Burghley 12 months ago to be adopted in 2004, when eventing may be making its swansong as an Olympic sport.