Cuban Experts Talk Olympic Baseball
olympicbaseball February 14th, 2006
Cuba, the powerhouse of international baseball, criticized the IOC about handle baseball and softball in London 2012 Olympics Games. They thought IOC President Jacques Rogge using mere formalities to deny baseball in Olympics.
Anyhow, baseball has another chance to in Olympics 2016 in the IOC meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.
Cuban analysts at a television roundtable criticized the latest International Olympic Committee´s opposition to the possible return of baseball and softball to the Olympic program.
Cuban Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation press chief Pedro Cabrera said the 118th IOC session in the Italian city of Turin swept under the rug the return of baseball to the Olympics, based on mere formalities.
Baseball and softball will be excluded from the London 2012 Olympics because IOC President Jacques Rogge played down letters addressed to him by 45 members of that entity to resume talks on the issue.
Rogge rejected their proposal and asked them the following question: Do you accept that this session reconsider the baseball-softball return to the Olympics, leaving out the formalities required to include this topic on the agenda?
The voting is well known: the respect for “required formalities†prevailed by a small margin.
Talks on baseball were excluded by 46 votes against and 42 in favor, and softball, 47 against and 43 in favor.
Which were those formalities?
The Olympic Charter regulates that an item previously analyzed and decided upon can only be examined again if an extraordinary session is called in advance.
Both sports were taken out of the London 2012 Olympic program in the IOC Session in Singapore seven months ago.
However, their inclusion in the 2016 Olympics will be discussed in the IOC meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.
Participants at the roundtable made it clear that Rogge himself had termed those formalities an anachronism.
Baseball entered the Olympic program for the first time in Barcelona 1992, following tireless efforts by late Puerto Rican German Rieckehoff and Cuban Manuel Gonzalez Guerra.
Cuba was the champ at Barcelona, Atlanta 1996 and Athens 2004, while the US won that of Sydney 2000.
