Rogge sympathetic to rugby's Olympic ambitions
March 30, 2009 - 5:08PM
WELLINGTON - International Olympic President Jacques Rogge said Monday he has "a lot of sympathy" for a call to make rugby sevens an Olympic sport.
But the former player for the Belgian national rugby team said the decision over its inclusion in the 2016 Olympics was not up to him.
"Let me say very clearly I do not vote. I have a lot of sympathy, but I have no vote," Rogge told a press conference in Wellington.
Rugby sevens is one of a number of sports -- including squash, baseball, softball, karate, golf and roller sports -- vying for two spots alongside the 26 existing events in 2016.
A final decision on which sports will be included will be made at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting in October.
Speaking in New Zealand, home of the All Blacks, Rogge was effusive about his love for rugby, but stopped short of giving his personal endorsement for the inclusion of rugby sevens in the Olympics.
Rogge, 66, represented Belgium in yachting at the 1968 and 1972 Olympics.
"I did that as well as I could, but I never found the joy in sailing that I found in rugby. Don't ask me why," he said.
"Rugby is a great sport, there is no doubt about that."
The International Rugby Board (IRB) has put forward rugby sevens as a candidate rather than the full 15-player form of the game because of the difficulty of holding a tournament in the two-week span of the Olympics.
The 15-a-side form is also dominated by several teams from the southern hemisphere and Europe, while the field is much more open in sevens. This was proved at the weekend's Hong Kong Sevens when New Zealand were knocked out by Kenya in the quarter-finals of a tournament eventually won by Fiji.
Rogge said to be selected, the sport must be played throughout most of the world, enhance the existing structure of the Olympics, attract spectators and television viewers, and must not be too difficult or expensive to organise.
"Definitely we want a sport with very strong ethical values, we want a sport that makes a very strong business of fighting against doping," he said.
IRB tournament operations manager Beth Coalter said in Hong Kong last week that sevens wholeheartedly supported new anti-doping measures introduced by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Rogge is in New Zealand for an Oceania Olympic Committee general assembly in Queenstown this week.
Rugby sevens, squash, baseball and softball will be making presentations on their bids for inclusion in the Olympics at the Queenstown meeting, which will be attended by Olympic committees from Australia, New Zealand and 13 Pacific island countries.
AFP
http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/n...261504918.html
