Rogge Praises Commission

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge wouldn’t disclose his opinion of an internal commission’s recommendation that softball, baseball and modern pentathlon be dropped from the Games and rugby and golf be added, if the two sports can guarantee participation of their top athletes.

And he said the endorsement of rugby--which he played--was coincidental. “I had absolutely no intervention in the proceedings of the program commission,” he said Thursday during a news conference that ended IOC executive board meetings in Lausanne, Switzerland. “My sport in the Olympics was sailing, and that is on the list of changes, so the international sailing federation will look at me with angry eyes.”

But Rogge’s praise of the commission that put the three sports on the chopping block hinted it’s on the right track.

“What I think is very important is that a commission of renowned experts has given a signal that there is a problem with some federations,” he said.

Citing the expense of constructing venues, low spectator and media interest, and the absence of the world’s top baseball players because of a conflict with Major League Baseball’s season, the committee proposed eliminating the three sports after the 2004 Athens Games. It backed adding seven-man rugby, which it said has “global participation and ... high spectator and broadcast appeal,” and golf, because of its “simplicity to understand ... and the very high spectator and broadcast appeal.”

The executive board will make a recommendation to the IOC assembly in November in Mexico City. A simple majority of votes at the assembly is needed to delete a sport, but a two-thirds majority is required to add one.

Aware of Rogge’s desire to limit the Summer Games to 28 sports, 300 events and 10,500 athletes, the commission also recommended eliminating canoe-kayak slalom, one wrestling discipline, synchronized swimming’s team event and racewalk events. It proposed reducing the number of events and participants in sailing, and refused to admit roller sports, polo, surfing, bridge, chess, bowling and racquetball.

To IOC member Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles, eliminating softball and baseball would be a move backward.

“My understanding was that since 1996, the IOC has had a commitment to make sure any sport brought to the program would include men and women,” she said. “I don’t know of any moment that changed....

“Often there’s an assertion that the women’s part of a discipline is at not as high a level as the men’s, and to me, that’s disingenuous. I feel their arguments don’t pertain really to the issues, and furthermore, they’re going to deprive women of a team sport, which is important for women aspiring to be Olympic athletes.”

Don Porter, president of the international softball federation, disputed the claims of low spectator and media interest. He said softball has 124 national federations, more than many other Olympic sports, and sold 84% of seats for games at Atlanta and Sydney. He also said 73 reporters covered the recent world championships in Saskatoon, Canada, including reporters from China, Japan, Australia and Italy.

“I hate to think of the young girls all over the world who want to be Olympians and play softball,” he said. “Their dreams could be crushed.”

He attributed softball’s tenuous status--which he learned of in a “Dear John” letter from Rogge slipped under the door of his Lausanne hotel room--to jealousy of U.S. success and a lack of U.S. officials at the executive level of international federations. Porter and Jim Easton, president of the international archery federation, are the only Americans to hold that office.

“We’ve lost a lot of influence in the last few years,” Porter said. “Most people know the Europeans control the Olympics because they have the votes.... For them to take a women’s sport off the program after saying they want to add women’s sports would be a big mistake.”

Trying to Figure Skating

The International Skating Union’s revised judging system will get its first test this week at the Nebelhorn Trophy competition in Obertsdorf, Germany.

The scores of nine judges will be randomly selected from a 14-judge panel to compute competitors’ scores, a move designed to minimize the deal making that has tainted the sport’s judging. In addition, a separate, small judging panel will use the proposed new cumulative scoring system, in which skaters will be graded from 0 to 6.0 based on elements they perform. That panel’s marks won’t determine the winners, but judges’ comments will be considered in future modifications. Both systems will get another tryout at Skate Canada in October.

“[Random selection] is probably a step forward, but I don’t think it’s the final solution,” veteran coach John Nicks said. “I’m not as confident in the scoring system at all. The addition to notes and key strokes judges will make during a performance or after a performance could increase the lack of attention to the performance.”

U.S. pair champions Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman have pulled out of their Grand Prix assignments. They have signed with Stars on Ice, whose U.S. tour is not sanctioned by the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. They have until Tuesday to file a regional entry form to maintain their eligibility for the 2003 U.S. championships.

Aliso Viejo skaters Rena Inoue and John Baldwin Jr. will keep their Skate America assignment, which will be a skateoff against Kristen Roth and Michael McPherson for a berth in the NHK Trophy competition.

In other news, Naomi Nari Nam of Irvine resumed training with Nicks in Aliso Viejo after a serious hip injury.

Here and There

Barb Lindquist, ranked second in the world by the International Triathlon Union and winner of the Mrs. T’s Triathlon last weekend in Chicago, has entered the City of L.A. Triathlon, to be held Sept. 8. Lindquist won the L.A. Triathlon in 2000 and was second last year to Nicole Hackett of Australia.

Also registered are five-time men’s world champion Simon Lessing of Britain and two-time women’s world champion Emma Carney of Australia.

Deena Drossin of Mammoth Lakes and Shadrack Hoff of South Africa will defend their titles in today’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon at Virginia Beach, Va.