This month's installment of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel features a report on the International Olympic Committee's decision to get rid of softball, which will cease to be an Olympic sport after Beijing. There are a lot of reasons that the IOC got rid of softball, but the biggest one seems to be that the United States dominates softball, and most members of the IOC don't like Americans. And why don't IOC members like Americans? In large part, because of the war in Iraq. Influential Canadian IOC member Dick Pound said this:
"It's still perceived as an American sport and the U.S. flag has not been high internationally for awhile. [The Iraq war is] a very unpopular position taken by the United States. Here are a couple of sports that are particularly strong in the United States, 'So long.'"
(Via NewsOK.com)
It's not too late for softball -- or baseball, which will also be gone after this year's Games -- to return to the Olympics some day. But for now, the IOC just doesn't like America very much, and softball players are paying the price.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-25-2008 @ 10:12PM
Martin said...
MDS - Ridiculous argument. If they wanted to go after sports that the U.S. dominates, they would get rid of swimming events, where the U.S. ends up with a boatload of medals. Softball only accounts for one medal for any one country. Get rid of the conspiracy theories and recognize that women's softball just isn't that big of a sport throughout the world. It is more reasonable to use x-game sports like skateboarding in the Olympics because they are more popular throughout the world.
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6-26-2008 @ 5:53AM
Dr Huxtable said...
Martin - "Ridiculous argument." This theory was suggested by a guy from the IOC. You know, the organization that runs the Olympics.
"If they wanted to go after sports that the U.S. dominates, they would get rid of swimming events, where the U.S. ends up with a boatload of medals"
It'd be pretty damn hard to eliminate the most basic of summer sports. And the U.S. doesn't even clear 1/3 of the swimming medals. There's actually competition. In softball, the U.S. has won all 3 gold medals. In Athens, they only gave up one run during the entire tournament! They won 3 games by the mercy rule! There is no competition. It is absolutely dominated by America.
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6-26-2008 @ 2:20PM
Dave said...
Really, it's because the IOC is dominated by Europeans. Baseball and softball pretty much come as a set (there's no point in getting rid of one without getting rid of the other), and baseball is quite popular throughout the Americas and in many Asian countries (most notably Japan); there's no real case for getting rid of it except misguided anti-US spite. But Europeans don't really believe non-Americans play baseball. It could be worse; if Commonwealth countries dominated the IOC, then we'd have Olympic cricket.
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6-27-2008 @ 1:03AM
Jon said...
They should have removed "walking" as an olympic event. What a travesty to the olympic tradition!
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6-27-2008 @ 7:54AM
Sports Fan said...
Basketball started out the same way until other countries caught up. Softball is hugely popular in Asia and Australia. Don't suggest that the biathlon or ski jumping be omitted because it's dominated by europeans.
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