 |
|
Squash Tells IOC Programme Commission: Recent Innovations Have Improved the Sport |
|
|
Squash - 19 Dec 2012 - By Callum Murray in Lausanne
Squash’s main message to the International Olympic Committee’s programme commission in a presentation today was that recent innovations have improved the sport, according to N Ramachandran, president of the World Squash Federation.
Speaking to Sportcal after the presentation, Ramachandran said: “Our main message was that the innovations have improved broadcasting, bringing squash to the public rather than the other way round. The best thing is when you do it in an outdoor location, with large video screens, you market your product better.”
Other innovations, Ramachandran said, include all-glass courts, referee video reviews, ‘super slo-mo’ replays and side wall entrances to courts, to prevent the doors from interfering with television images (cameras are usually sited behind the glass back wall of the court).
Ramachandran said: “It’s better for TV, and gives greater clarity, improving the quality of the broadcast. These are all innovations that have been done in the last two or three years [since squash’s unsuccessful application for inclusion in the programme of the 2016 Olympic Games]. We’ve listened and learned from the IOC what our defects were, and we’ve overcome 99 per cent of them.”
Squash is competing against karate, roller sports, softball, sport climbing, wakeboard, wushu and a combined bid from baseball and softball for inclusion in the 2020 programme, with only one sport likely to be chosen. All seven international federations involved made presentations to the IOC in Lausanne today.
The squash presentation also featured James Willstrop, the men's world number-one player, Andrew Shelley, the WSF’s chief executive, and junior player Reyna Pacheco.
In a statement, Ramachandran added: “We also stressed the global reach and appeal of the sport. All five continents have produced both male and female world champions, and the current women's top 20 features players from 12 countries spread across every continent. There can be no doubt that if squash were to be included in the Olympic Games programme it would provide more countries with a chance to be on the medal podium.”
Shelley said: “The format we have proposed to the IOC Programme Commission is Men's and Women's Singles Championships involving 32 male and 32 female players. Matches would take place on two state-of-the art all glass courts, each with a capacity of up to 4,000 spectators, utilising steep seating to create a really strong arena affect and great atmosphere. Squash would be easy and low cost to integrate into the Olympic Games, with just 64 athletes, two competition courts that can be built in a matter of days, and only 20 officials.
“Squash also has the advantage of sharing a venue if required, or being staged in an iconic, visually stunning environment and our sport has a track record of doing exactly this. For example, in front of the Pyramids, alongside Hong Kong Harbour and at Grand Central Station in New York.”
The IOC executive board will decide next May which sport to recommend for inclusion, and the final decision will be made in a vote of the full membership in Buenos Aires in September 2013.
Sportcal |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
| Powered by |  |
|
|