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Baseball and Softball

bid will go to

Buenos Aires Riccardo Schiroli in Saint Petersburg

Sources:
The IOC Executive revealed http://www.ibaf.org/en/infopage-
detail.aspx?id=51b58af8-1aaa-4fd2-
their shortlist, that includes 800a-fe2ae8e9a351
Baseball & Softball, Wrestling

and Squash

IBAF Baseball News 05/2013

Baseball and Softball are on the shortlist of sports that Programme Commission Chairman Franco Carraro, who
are still being considered by the International Olympic was explicit in saying that he was going to answer only
祝願棒球和壘球重返奧運 Committee (IOC) for inclusion in the programme of the to technical questions and wouldn’t accept to comment
2020 Olympics. The other two are wrestling and squash. “political” issues, explained that the decision required 9
It was announced in Saint Petersburg (Russia) at the end rounds of votings.
of the fourth day of the SportAccord Convention.
Asked why the shortlist is made of 3 sports, Carraro
IOC Director of Communications Mark Adams made it to answered: “After an global evaluation, that was the
the press briefing room at 7.28 pm local time. After a brief decision of the Executive”.
introduction, he announced the three bids that had been
accepted in this order: wrestling, baseball & softball and Carraro also suggested that: “We are not talking about a
squash. game with two halves. The Buenos Aires voting is going to
be a totally new match.”
The work of the World Baseball Softball Confederation
(WBSC), in which the IBAF and the International Softball Riccardo Fraccari made a similar reflection: “We all start
Federation (ISF) had merged earlier this year, has been over at zero. It’s going to be challenging. Our competitors
thus rewarded. Co-Presidents Riccardo Fraccari and Don are great sports”.
Porter had a first, unanimous thought for “The millions of
baseball and softball players in the world”. The IOC distributed a press release with a declaration
by President Jacques Rogge: “The Executive Board
Fraccari added: “I wish to thank all of the professional received excellent presentations today from 8 International
organizations. They really supported us”. Federations. It was never going to be an easy decision, but
I feel my collegues on the Board made a good decision on
Porter used the game’s language to express his feelings: selecting baseball/softball, squash and wrestling to be
“We are in the 7th inning now”. put forward in Buenos Aires. I wish the 3 shortlisted sports
the best of luck in the run up to the vote in September.
IOC Director of Sports Christophe Dubi made it clear that
the merging of the two bodies into a Confederation was During the press conference Franco Carraro had
one of the keys for the inclusion of baseball and softball in previously explained that: “First the Congress will approve
the shortlist. the core list of 25 sports. As you may recall, rugby 7 and
golf will be in the 2020 Olympics anyway. So, the voting
will be to pick the 28th sport”.

RUN Issue 76 First Quarter 2013/14 05

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