Is Expanding the Games in the Cards?

The International Bridge Federation plans to apply this year to the International Olympic Committee for a place on the Olympic program. Opponents might protest that bridge is not a sport, but where does it say that all contests in the Olympics must involve sports?

“These are the Olympic Games,” said Bruce Keidan, an unofficial spokesman for the IBF. “They are not called the Olympic Sports.”

Besides, said Keidan, whose day job is as an editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “a century from now, people might look back in amazement that the Olympic Games included boxing, which is known to cause senile dementia, and not bridge, which is known to prevent the onset of senile dementia.”

One might argue that a person would have to already be suffering from senile dementia to try to get a sport into the Olympics.

Don Porter, president of the International Softball Federation, campaigned for almost three decades to get his sport onto the program for the Summer Olympics.

“Twenty-nine years, six months and 13 days,” he said.

“We heard no, no, no from the IOC,” he said. “It was a long, hard struggle. I can’t tell you how many times I considered giving up.”

Porter finally heard yes in 1991. Softball was played for the first time as a medal sport in 1996.

Porter said softball was finally accepted because the IOC recognized that the Games needed more female competitors. Softball was added on the program as the female equivalent to baseball.

But, he said, it is more difficult to gain admission to the Summer Olympic program now because of concerns about the size of those Games. With more than 10,000 athletes already involved, the IOC is committed to a slow-growth or even a no-growth policy.

The Winter Olympics, with approximately 2,500 athletes, has more room to expand, but the IOC charter restricts those Games to ice or snow sports.

Unless the charter is relaxed, sports that might have to remain on the waiting list for a while longer include ballroom dancing, bowling, golf, karate, roller skating, squash and water skiing.

Perhaps bridge could move to the front of the line by placing tables on ice.

There no longer are demonstration or exhibition sports in the Olympics, but there was an IOC Grand Prix championship for bridge here the week before the Games began. Canada won the men’s championship, France the women’s. About 30 IOC members watched at least one game.

“Obviously, bridge doesn’t have a huge physical component,” Keidan said. “But the concentration level required to play is pretty high. It’s golf without the clubs.”

Bridge’s campaign probably won’t have difficulty raising money. A leading proponent is Warren Buffett.