The SportAccord Convention opened on Sunday

27/05/2013

Monday will be entirely dedicated to various meetings, including the General Assembly of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) and of the Association of the IOC Recognized International Sports Federations (ARISF); the Exhibition will be open from 8.30 am on Tuesday 5/28, while the Opening Ceremony is scheduled for 6 pm the same day.

by Riccardo Schiroli

The 2013 SportAccord Convention opened in Saint Petersburg(Russia) on Sunday 5/26.
“We could not be happier about holding the Convention in this great city” said SportAccord Convention Chairman Hein Verbruggen.
The event is hosted by the Lenexpo Exhibition complex.

Monday will be entirely dedicated to various meetings, including the General Assembly of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) and of the Association of the IOC Recognized International Sports Federations (ARISF); the Exhibition will be open from 8.30 am on Tuesday 5/28, while the Opening Ceremony is scheduled for 6 pm the same day.

The core of the 2013 Convention will be the IOC Executive Board meeting, taking place on Wednesday together with the joint meetings the the IOC Executive will hold with ASOIF and the Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF). The IOC Executive will hear the presentations of the sports bidding for inclusion in the 2020 Olympics programma:baseball/softball, sport climbing, karateroller sports, squash,wakeboardwrestling and wushu.
The IOC Executive Board has alreading scheduled a press briefingfor 8.30 pm. The main purpose will be the announcement of a short list of sports that will go under a Congress voting in September to pick one that will be added to the 2020 Games programme.

Asked by Around the Rings if the shortlist will include or 3 sports, IOC President Jacques Rogge answered: “I don’t know. This is going to be decided by the Executive Board. What we will do is the following: we will have presentations of the eight sports, and then we will have a discussion, and then see how the eight sports are being ranked by the members. If you have a situation where two or three sports are close to each other then definitely there will be a shortlist. But you could have a situation where one sport emerges with a big lead compared to the others and then it will be that sport”.

It looks like that the only thing we can take for granted at this stage is that there will only be room for one sport.
Still, plenty of opinions are being expressed about the potential shortlist. Former IOC Marketing Director Michael Payne told Sportcal that the Olympic programme should be updated with the addition of sports that would “Add a youth dynamic” and be “Embraced by the TV networks”.
Around the Rings editor in chief Ed Hula wrote an editorial that strongly supports the inclusion of baseball and softball: “They now stand together in a single Confederation and provide a gender balanced addition to the Games”.
Ed Hula adds: “Unfortunately for baseball and softball, the contest to rejoin the Olympic program has been thrown into confusion with the IOC Executive Board decision in February to cut wrestling from the core of 25 sports for the 2020 program.The illogic of dropping a sport practiced since the ancient Olympics and followed widely around the world today is a hard one to explain by the IOC”

The IOC Executive Board will also meet on Thursday 5/30. During these meeting the Board Members will listen to the presentations of the 3 cities that are bidding to host the 2020 OlympicsIstanbulTokyo and Madrid. The IOC Executive will brief the press about this at 6.30 pm.

The SportAccord Convention has also a rich Conference Programme, highlighted by the presence of Auto Racing’s Jean Todt.

The IBAF and the ISF merged recently in the World Baseball Softball Confederation, that will have a booth at the SportAccord Exhibition.