BERLIN, 16 June 2005 — Olympic supremo Jacques Rogge reiterated in an interview published yesterday that he is ready to revise the sports program to keep the Olympics attractive in the future.
“I declare that sports should be exchanged,” the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Rogge told Germany’s Berliner Zeitung.
But he added: “What we need is evolution, not revolution.”
Rogge said that the young generation had a different interest in sport than their parents, but that this should not lead to a radical change of the program.
“We have to react to this in order to make the Games attractive in the long run. This is not a question of a short-term, brutal change, but rather is a very long process,” he said.
The IOC has made a full review of the 28 summer sports, with the 265-page report published earlier this week.
The 116 IOC members will vote on the future of each sport at the Congress in early July in Singapore. A 50 percent majority is needed to keep a sport in the program which currently consists of 300 medal events in 28 sports for 10,500 athletes.
If sports are excluded from the Games, starting in 2012, golf, rugby, squash, karate and inline skating are ready to replace them.
The 28 sports organized in the AGFIS federation recently held an extraordinary meeting and appealed to the IOC members to keep the status quo.
“I can understand that people do their utmost to keep their status. But my measurement is a global one.
“The program is not made up of 28 territories, but a synergy of individual and team sports, fight sports, artistic sports, sports popular on one continent but not known on another. It is a fantastic mix,” Rogge said.
Rogge also warned the IOC members that no sport should be excluded in the future because it was well organized and profitable.
“We can’t exclude anyone because he makes money. We want the best. Otherwise we would soon reach a level of anonymity,” Rogge said.
