Softball: Olympic Games place possible

Softball could be in line for an 11th-hour reprieve and restored to the Olympic programme after being axed from the London 2012 Games last year.

Former International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president Anita DeFrantz today told reporters that she would be rallying her fellow members at this week's session to restore softball.

Its only hope is if IOC members vote the sport back in. IOC president Jacques Rogge said earlier that if this did not happen at the February 8-10 Session in Turin it would be too late for it to feature in London.

The sport's readmission is not on the agenda for discussion but DeFrantz of the United States said she would be raising it anyway.

"I am going to raise this as someone who cares about the Olympic programme," she told reporters in a corridor of Turin's Lingotto building.

"My gut feeling is we should do this... and I like to win. I think (if softball were readmitted) it would be a win for the IOC too."

Softball, along with baseball, was dropped from the Olympic programme in a controversial vote at the IOC's July 2005 session in Singapore to become the first sports to be cut from the Games since polo in 1936.

All 28 sports on the programme of the 2004 Athens Olympics were put to the vote in Singapore and each had needed a simple majority to remain on the schedule.

Softball failed when its vote came out at 52-52 with one abstention.

Now, if one third of IOC members present are in agreement at the Turin Session, they could introduce a motion to have softball, baseball, or both restored.

That motion would have to be accepted by half the members present and there would then be a new vote to admit the sports to the Games programme.

Unless the IOC is prepared to restore one or both sports, London will stage a reduced Olympic Games in 2012.

London's showpiece will feature 26 sports rather than 28. The last Olympics to be staged with 26 sports was Atlanta in 1996.

The minimum number required for a Games is 15 while the maximum is 28.

- REUTERS