91Èȱ¬

It's unnecessarily prissy to say that Amir Khan's views are 100 years out of date.

He doesn't enjoy watching women punching each other, fair play to him. Not a lot of men or women would and neither do I.

Women slugging it out with each other in the same way as men is progress and anyone who doesn't agree is a dinosaur?

Cheers Matt, but I will be watching sevens instead. Let's hope your future insights are more articulate than dismissive.

I find it frustrating that Victoria Pendleton should have as many golds as Hoy or Wiggins, but does not due to the ludicrous imbalance in the mens & womens track cycling schedule.

I'm not that excited about Golf being in the Olympics for the same reason that I don't feel that Tennis really belongs. I could name most of the recent major winners (and watched many of the finals); I'm not sure who the Olympic champions are.

Rugby sevens will be a fantastic addition to the Olympic schedule and provided that the top players partake then so will the golf.

I also cannot understand why there are more medals on offer for men than women in some events.

We now have the Olympics in 2012 no matter what, wouldn't it be great if the BOA stuck 2 fingers up to the IOC and actually offered to right the imbalance, by announcing that ALL events were equal, ie they will stage the same number of boxing, cycling, swimming etc. events for both men and women.

It obviously won't happen, even though what the IOC is doing seems illegal under British sexual discrimination law. It wasn't long ago that women ski jumpers sued in Canada with they same reasoning, they lost, but I think if athletes tried the same thing in Britain, our courts would have to come down in their favour, as they are always scared of appearing non-PC.

oops, I pressed 'post comment' instead of 'preview'.

As for the BS that there are too many athletes, get rid of sports that are bigger than the Olympics already. The Olympics is no place for tennis or football anyway, let alone golf or rugby, all of them have events that the individual competitors would rather win than a gold medal.

The IOC is simply way too greedy for its own and sport in generals good.

I think its ridiculous that stupid minority sports can achieve olympic status but squash has not been given the opportunity.
For all the top players it would be a dream come true, the pinnacle of their careers, not just another title as we have now with some sports.
Top squash players are REAL athletes whose dedication to their sport deserves our respect but more importantly our recognition.
Squash is only asking for a couple of gold medals to be awarded - not too much to ask when in other sports such as swimming and cycling a single competitor can win 15!

Well rugby's PR campaign seems to of worked....all that talk of 400 to 700 million Tv viewers.....all those countries with no hope of winning…7’s are events for expats to get drunk in far off countries.

I think sports at the Olympics need to have 2 things going for them:

Firstly and most importantly they need to be the pinnacle of the sport. Golf fails miserably at this one, as does Tennis and Football, all should be axed because of it. Rugby Sevens could just about make the Olympics its highest prize and squash definitely could.

Secondly there needs to be a sizeable interest in both watching and playing the sport. Who has an interest in watching womens boxing? I dont and I dont know anyone who does. How many women do you know who actually box?

We can all be as politically correct as we want but it doesnt take away from the fact that men play far more competitive sport than women, men watch far more sport than women, or that in almost every case the male versions of the sport is the one both men and women have a statistically greater interest in wanting to watch (even where the womens version of the sports are high profile like tennis see how much cheaper scalpers tickets are for grand slam womens finals than the mens).

This isnt to denigrate women in sport at all, there are hosts of fine, dedicated female athletes. However if men play more sport, more men watch sport and on average people far prefer watching the mens version of sports then isnt it logical that the olympics will have more mens medals on offer?

i think bigchiefally is spot on first up where i couldn't agree more with kicking tennis, football and golf from the olympics. as much as rugby-7s & the olympics will be great for one another, i also think futsal would be good for it rather than normal football. i've thought for a while now that it should replace its 11-aside older bro.

but i don't quite agree with the second point (though how much cheaper women's tennis - esp final - tickets are than men's does make me laugh). i dunno - maybe I am a product of modern pc-ness in thinking that things should be more equal. are you saying there's a considerably larger following and participation in men's canoeing than in women's away from the olympics? and track cycling? i don't think i am that pc though because i don't agree with women tennis players getting the same prize money as men, but we won't go into that!

and no matter what you say (not b-c-ally anymore), if you're getting your nose up at women boxing but not extending that to martial arts you are a dinosaur. seriously - it is because you're from an old decade, or should be, because you haven't moved out of it yet.

in general, drop a few men's medals if need be (for things like women's cycling to be equal); get rid of golf - IOC, who you kidding? everyone knows it's for the money - tennis and footy; and Amir - learn how to structure an argument around something greater than your prejudices. oh and get footsal involved - great game!

oh and good article matt. by the bye- what do people reckon to futsal?

The benefit to both the Olympic Games and rugby 7s for its inclusion I feel far out way the other sports vying for the position. Rugby sevens at the Olympics will -

* attract a huge number of additional sports tourists to the Games
* Pack out an existing stadium for 2-3 days
* draw even greater interest in the Games amongst younger sporting fans
* attract a massive TV audience from a diverse range of regions
* expand the number of potential medal-winning countries
* reinforce the Olympic ideals of fair-play and friendship to as greater an extent as any other sport

There are still lots to do think and the best place to start is by signing the petition at

Hi Matt -

On 2) there may be truth in what you say on womens participation in sport but I would be stunned if the largest reason for the lower levels of female interest is not simply the fact men and women, on average and with exceptions on both sides, have different interests and different driving motivations? I played football for many years and didnt like playing in bad weather, few do and as weather got worse you would definitely find more men finding excuses not to turn up espescially for practice but it would need to be pretty horrendous to be called off. I also coached a womens football team for a few years and these ladies all obviously liked the sport and some were pretty good at it, yet I very soon realised there was zero point at all in holding practice when there was any chance of rain as there would be 3 girls there. Different priorities and drives, not right or wrong, just different and as such I dont think we should be striving for 100% equity in numbers just equality in opportunity.

I do like the idea of the olympics keeping womens football and booting mens out though. Not sure how FIFA would react to that, I would wager heavily that a Womens World Cup football competition would get worse attendances that a Womens Olympic Football tournament (espescially if the mens was axed) in most countries, and FIFA might not appreciate their dominance of even this aspect of football being challenged.

The results of the IOC's voting procedure are here:

I find it amazing that in the first round, to elect the first sport to be included, squash didn't get a single vote.
But, when squash and roller sports (neither of which got any votes) were eliminated, how do you explain the different voting patterns in the second round?
There are some other strange patterns , I think , in the results. Who knows what wheeling and dealing went on between rounds?

Rugby sevens? Is this the Olympics or the British Empire Games?

No worse than team handball where the pools are packed with teams from Europe, and all but 1 medal in the history of the sport has been won by a team from Europe.

Anyway, ha ha Castro and Chavez. Your national sport isn't in the Olympics because the IOC thinks that baseball is only played in the USA.

Bad for softball, since winning gold at the Olympics was the pinnacle of the sport. Tough luck Japan for playing an "American sport", no repeat gold for you.

Rather watch Olympic wall painting rather than womens boxing. It usually ends up with horrible mismatches, so there is no point including it until the sport has grown up more.

Has anyone begun to think about the potential complications of picking a "GB" rugby sevens team for 2016, especially with the political grandstanding we've already had over football in 2012? Admittedly I don't suppose even the most paranoid Scottish (or, more credibly, Welsh) nationalist could credibly argue that this is a plot by the IRB to put their national teams out of business and force the creation of one UK side for World Cups etc but the scope for complications (and further political grandstanding) is there. Also, how would Irish players fit in given that the IRFU operates on an all-Ireland basis? Presumably Ulster players would play for an Ireland Olympic rugby team (as boxers from Northern Ireland already do)?

Rugby's been in the Olympics before, though not terribly happily. The competition struggled for participants; in 1900 the UK was represented by a club side who got thumped by France and had to go home before they could play Germany, the only other side to turn up. In 1908 the Cornwall county side turned out for the UK to play against a combined Australia/New Zealand side which was essentially the Wallabies touring team under another name. France were supposed to compete but couldn't field a competitive side and droped out at the last minute. In 1920 only France and the USA competed, the latter causing a big upset by winning and in 1924 those two were joined by Romania; the USA won again in a game marred by crowd trouble.

Hopefully a Sevens tournament will be a bit more competitive these days, and it should allow countries like Samoa and Fiji who never normally get near an Olympic medal a chance to compete in a sport where they have a chance of glory.

I respect rugby and golf as worldwide sports that attract a lot of attention but to me they are not really worthy of being in the Olympics because to me the games should only have events where winning a medal is the high point of an athlete's career as in athletics and swimming.

I guess its attractive though to sponsors and these days sport is all about money.

* attract a huge number of additional sports tourists to the Games
* Pack out an existing stadium for 2-3 days
* draw even greater interest in the Games amongst younger sporting fans
* attract a massive TV audience from a diverse range of regions
* expand the number of potential medal-winning countries
* reinforce the Olympic ideals of fair-play and friendship to as greater an extent as any other sport

Pure PR Guff. Massive Tv audience?? There is no evidence of this what so ever. Younger fans? wheres the evidence? Expand the number of medal winning countries by 3? (Gb and Aus will be in the running so you might have 1 medal to another nation?). Ideals and fair play? Recent events suggest otherwise.

The IOC have changed the voting rules to get 7's in.

Matt said

OK, perhaps I was a bit hard on Amir - it's not like he's alone with his views
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think you were hard enough on Khan, some people on here must not realise that Khan is unpopular largely for what comes out of his mouth as well as also having a very carefully orchestrated career based on hand picked fights. Personally I am not sure if Amir should be fighting himself as the single cell he has in his brain could be irreparably damaged by a punch leading to complete mental breakdown. When Ben Dirs writes about Khan he always seems to get the word cerebral into the article, he has got to be taking the p.

As for women being involved in contact sports I think the fact that amateur boxing is so tactical and strategic it is as safe as boxing can be. The computer scoring does not favour brawling or fighting on the inside. If people are asking about woman's combats sport being popular, maybe they should look at the huge pay per view numbers that an MMA fight between Gina Carano and Cristiane 'Cyborg' Santos would generate.

Getting in the ring is always dangerous no matter what but I think we have gone beyond the point of excluding women from sport based on gender.

I was glad to see that Katie Taylor's weight class has been included as one of the three and will be cheering her on. I hope the limited number of weight classes does not create mis-matches.

Matt wrote

I would also consider dumping equestrian, modern pentathlon and weightlifting completely to bring in new, more exciting/accessible sports that would have to have 50/50 male/female splits, and I would be tempted to lose the female-only sports of synchro and rhythmic gymnastics too
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think weightlifting is an integral part of the Olympics and it generates viewer interest every four years. It also has a good male/female split.

I agree with others that say that tennis, golf, men's football, pro basketball players, rugby and pro road racing cyclist should not be part of the olympics. The above individual sports generate huge financial rewards for the professional participants and this is not really in keeping with the Olympic ideal of amateurism. I have to say I do not really like how the Olympics have become corporate to the extent that big name professional atheletes are required to generate interest.

Personally I think Tiger Wood's attitude towards the olympics would be similar to his slightly dismissive attitude towards the Ryder Cup. As Tiger has said nobody will ask in the futire about how many Ryder Cups he has won.

I think the Olympics is heading in completely the wrong direction.

Golf is probably as far away from the Olympic idea and motto as one can get and still be called sport. What next? Darts? Synchronised fishing?

Completely agree that for any sport to be even considered for Olympic games, then the winning of a gold medal should be the pinnacle of that sport's calendar. That isn't the case for golf, football and tennis, so they should be scrapped. Olympic football attracts absolutely no interest from anyone. I'm impressed that Rugby 7's have said that the Olympics will be their big international event.

I also agree with Matt that Olympic sports need an overhaul, not a series of little tweaks. They need to review the entire schedule and ask for all events to justify their continued inclusion. I don't care what anyone says, beach volleyball, syncronised anything, twirling ribbons and walking briskly for 20Km aren't sports. They just aren't.

I think that lots of people have little knowledge of rugby 7s and are relating it to the 15 a side game far two strongly. Infact the sport is played to a high level buy far more nations than the 15 a side game, i expect as many as nine sides will think they're in with a chance. Aditionlally 7s rugby requires a completly different type of player to 15 a side meaning that many of the top plays won't get picked simply because there are better alternatives. This means that the majority of 7s players for the obvious nations are finge players at 15 a side clubs or youngster's who have bags of pace and skill but lack size. As for nations like kenya (who would be well worth a bet) most of the players play only 7s and i'm unsure whether they are amateur or proffesional so I doubt many of these players get any where near as much as 15s internationls let alone the kind of money footballers of golfers get.

As for fair play rugby has always had its own take on the matter, certainly at grassroots level, however players respect referee's and all share the same motto that whatever happens on the pitch stays on the pitch and grudges are rarely held beyond the final whistle. I also believe the RFU have been very clever in issuing the harlequins with such an extensive punishment (12 month suspension for the player and they might not compete in the next heineken cup) for faking a blood injury as this is certainly the first time i've heard of this king of cheating and i expect most teams will think twice before trying again!

Matt

Are you not being somewhat dismissive when you state "As for the 'progress' line, that was a bit of a joke." in respopnse to ScotsSevenNutjob at 1. You can certainly read into that comment from ScotsSevenNutjob an argument for banning men's boxing. This is a perfectly reasonable proposition and certainly not a joke.

More generally on the Olympics, I find the whole thing a complete turn off. The IOC are conscious that even as the Games stand at the moment, there are only a handful of countries which have the financial resources to stage them. This will only get worse as new sports such as golf are added. I'm getting fed up with the addition of new sports which require infrasructure and expensive equipment for competitors to reach Olympic standards. How many Africans have access to a golf course or swimming pool or velodrome or the latest cervelo racing bike or a squash cout? And as for the modern pentathlon, how many people in the UK have access to this sport?

You can probably guess from this that I'm not a supporter of the London Games in 2012. I just don't buy all this legacy stuff or that the public seeing UK sports people doing well will result in any sustained up-take in sports in the UK. Where is the evidence? My view is that the best way to increase participation is to provide more facilities, coaching and access to sports at a local level. We should get away from this obsession with elite sports; the focus should be on developing a culture where partricipating in sports throughout life becomes the norm. In my view, reaching this goal is more likely to be achieved through providing facilities than through funding a small number of elite athletes.

Finally, is there any one else out there who finds Lord Coe irritating? I know that this comment may be verging on scarilege to some at the 91Èȱ¬ but I just find that he tries too hard to come accross as some sort of intellectual. I had to laugh yesterday when he used the expression "Pavlovian instinct" when being interviewed by Gary Richardson on Radio 5. I'm sure Pavlov would have been turning in his grave at that one!"

I would definitely get rid of the keirin in preference to the madison

The keirin is realistically another sprint competition; the madison is just crazy and great to watch + has a team aspect to it

As for 7s - they will be a good addition to the programme

Personally, I don't think that women's boxing is going to attract a big audience - sure, in the society of today, one could class it as "fair" that there is a parity between the two sexes, so that two women will be able to punch the living daylights out of each other as well, but who really wants to watch that? I definitely don't, and I'd say that a large sample of people that I know don't either. Therefore, I hope to eventually see it fade out of the Olympic schedule, and eventually be replaced by one of the sports that didn't get included, like squash, a sport that, provided they have courts with see-through walls, could be very exciting to watch, and is also good from a British perspective, as we have produced some very good squash players in the past, such as the legendary Peter Nicol.

Rugby Sevens, I think, is a great idea - it's great to watch (I've been following the World Sevens Series for a couple of years now, and I love it) and it will also give the opportunity for smaller nations, such as Fiji and Samoa, to win medals. As well as this, a lot of Unions have said that they would be willing to send their countries' very best players to these competitions, even big names from the fifteen-a-side game, so this will definitely attract more interest, not just in Rugby, but also in terms of general spectators. Above all, however, it is a sport that's already been proven to work in multi-sport events, with the Commonwealth Games being the prime example. Therefore, I completely agree with the decision to include this into the Olympic schedule - just a shame that it couldn't be in the London one!

And now, Golf. This idea has drawn enthusiasm from fans of the game, and also from the PGA, as it will help to promote their beloved sport. However, the main thing would be whether the players themselves would be up for another "major" tournament in their already busy Summer schedule - I would imagine that they probably would, but it would depend. It could either go the way of Basketball, whereby some players simply just aren't too bothered about the idea of participating in the Olympics, it could go the way of Athletics, whereby it's one of the most important championships in the calendar, or, and this is the option I really hope doesn't happen, it could go the way of Football, whereby the eligibility rules are very unclear and would therefore make it more of a Mickey Mouse tournament. I personally hope that it becomes as important as the majors - being a tournament that would only be held once every four years, one could see how the Gold Medal would be able to gain an importance in the sport, but we will have to see.

Just another thing though - I don't get why BMX racing is still in the schedule - yes, it's an extreme sport, so it appeals to the teenagers of today, but why choose that over giving women more disciplines in the vélodrome? Call me old fashioned (even for a 20 year old), but I just can't take grown men and women racing on kid's bikes seriously, and were it not for the one British rider we had in it, I don't think I would have watched it at all, and this is coming from a person who watched the last Olympic games religiously.

Being an actual woman and actually having boxed at a university level I think the inclusion of women's boxing in the Olympics is a massive step forward. Amir Khan's comments, inflammatory and offensive as they are, I have heard many times before - especially when trying to attend local clubs. Hopefully the inclusion in the Olympics will be a step forward in sexism at this grassroots level that I have frequently encountered.
The comments about women "slugging it out with each other" and "punch the living daylights out of each other" clearly know nothing about amateur boxing (comparing amateur and professional boxing is like comparing a sprint to a marathon), where people are fairly matched up due to experience and weight. Also the safety of the boxer is paramount and if there really is a mismatch or you are in serious trouble your coach should throw in the towel. I am not naive anough to think that everyone would want or even should watch (women's) boxing but the inclusion in the Olympics is, for me, all about the ability to choose.
There are plenty of people I know who will watch (admittedly at my insistence) the women's boxing and hopefully will be surprised when they do - I am pretty sure many of the commentators here have never actually seen two skilled women box before.
Hopefully, when the women boxers come on screen in 2012, people will comment on how skilled the boxers are, without adding women before, then real progress will have been made.

Having read some of the comments about women boxers I am struck by how ill-informed some of the posters are about women’s boxing. People should realise that the top female boxers are extremely talented and many spar with men. I know Katie Taylor who is one of the top pound for pound boxers in the world would easily deal with the average male club fighter.

I think when people think of women boxing they see it as some kind of farce but it is far from it. The fighting is as full on as the men’s and the skills of the top female practitioners compare with the men. In terms of the cringe factor of seeing women hit each other in the face why not take a look at their faces – they don’t look punched up with broken noses, cauliflower ears etc

To jovialcattu and Strongback, my apologies. I will admit my ignorance and say that I've hardly even heard much about Women's boxing up until "Million Dollar Baby" and then the inclusion of the amateur version in the 2012 schedule. If anything, I can imagine that the boxers would be more agile, even at larger weights, so therefore it would be quite exciting to watch. It's just that the concept is alien to me, as it's not something that's normally very accessible as a spectator sport. Therefore, when I first heard about it being included, I wasn't really warming to the idea. People do have preconceived ideas, I know I'm guilty of it, and I apologise again. I'll be pretty certain that the Olympics will do wonders for the women's side of the sport.

Also, nedafo, I agree that a lot of sports like swimming and cycling are a bit biased, due to the fact that there's limited access to resources in developing countries, but these countries still win medals in other sports, particularly in Athletics, where distance running is dominated by people from coutries like Ethiopia and Kenya. Sevens will certainly give opportunities to teams who have appeared in the World Series, such as Kenya (again), Fiji, Samoa and Moldova, to be able to compete for medals that would they would otherwise not get. Where some countries fail in some sports, there are others where they shine - that's the way it's always been, and that's probably the way it's always going to be, no matter how much investment you put in to any sport.

I'll definitely agree with you on the point that there is a significant lack of facilities in the UK for sport though. My old boss, who's a South African, was always telling me that there were inter-school leagues for practically every sport going, and that he started playing sports from a really young age when he was living there. All the time, I was just thinking to myself "Why don't we have that?" - why, instead of having to call up and arrange matches with other schools in order to play competitive sport, don't we have a Schools Sports Governing Body that deals with it all, assigns leagues and tournaments between schools within a specific area, and guarantees that matches will be played on something of a regular basis? I remember playing basketball at school, and I think the only time we actually played in a league which completed a season was when I was playing at U14 level, and I played another 4 seasons since that year. It's an appalling state of affairs, and it really should get sorted out - I just hope that Lord Coe and his carefully chosen words have a proper plan for what happens once the games are over.

Why has golf been added and squssh left out???
Rugby and squash are sports, golf is a past time.
Why not allow other 'sports' such as Poker in???

Very odd choices.
The Olympics should have sports for which the Olympics is the pinnacle of that sport. Tennis should have been dropped for this reason and golf should not have been included. In both cases the "majors" are what matters to the players.
Don't expect the top players to turn up for the Olympics rugby Sevens. For a start No 1,2,3,4 and 5 are not mobile enough. The best sevens players are usually young and incredibly fit. The British Army walked off the Middlesex Sevens title against premiership opposition for this reason. Still, on a brighter note, Fiji might win a gold medal and that doesn't happen very often.
Rather than add more sports the IOC should have resolved once and for all the medal inequality between male and female. Until that issue is addressed the IOC are about as in touch as Amir Khan.

It's terribly unfair to say that Olympic tennis has not got the cachet of the Grand Slams. For one, it's not as old as the Slams, and doesn't have the history, but featured all of the top players in Beijing. I think that if you asked Rafael Nadal, he would emphatically put his gold medal on the same pedestal as his Slam wins -- and because the GM is a once-in-four-years opportunity, whereas slams come along in the opposite ratio, the rarity value makes it even more special. One never sees a mention of Steffi Graf without also seeing her Golden Slam mentioned.

In sum, it's unfair to expect a newly-added sport with a high profile, like tennis, to immediately promote the Olympic competition over its already prestigious events. But, given time, I think it's clear that the investment in Olympic achievement will come to rival and then exceed that of the other events.

How golf got in over squash is a joke.
For all those IOC members with dollar signs in their eyes dreaming of Tiger winning Olympic gold:
1. Tiger will not be playing for Tiger, he'll be playing for USA. We all know how much he cares about that minor event called the Ryder Cup every 2 years.
2. Tiger is solely motivated by major championships. If the Olympic golf week falls the week before the US PGA - not enitely impossible I think given the scheduling - I'd be surprised if he even turns up.
3. He may even have retired by then!

On the rugby front - is there any reason why London can't include the 7s in 2012?

Womens' boxing will definitely be welcome, if only because it might knock out (pun intended) some preconceptions.

Picking golf has a logic to it, but it's the wrong logic. Squash and sevens were my choices too.

I dont really see womens boxing as a serious sport. However there are already lots of sports that are already olympic . Hey I guess if people are prepared to watch them and television prepared to cover them, then they are enough a sport for the olympics .

golf by the olympics brilliant ,Tiger woods by the olypics great

Women's professional boxing is a loathsome spectacle - debased and debasing.

Anyone who is so desensitised that they can no longer appreciate this fact needs to take a long hard looks at themselves.

The problem with the inclusion of amateur boxing at the Olympics is that it tends to legitimise the idea.

Fortunately, the history of the Games is littered with "sports" which were allowed one or two chances then ditched.

Let's hope the same happens here.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I agree women's Olympic boxing is progress, but it also harks back to when boxing was altogether a more popular sport and putting on boxing gloves to show off, win a bet or settle a score was something done by either gender. Still, let's hope not everything repeats itself:

"Olean (New York) Times, June 16, 1925; Syracuse (New York) Herald, July 26, 1925. Heaven City was a commune outside Harvard, Illinois, and Nina Roundtree was Schofield's 15-year-old girlfriend. Schofield boasted that he was a boxer, and to prove it, he sparred a male member of the commune. However, he fared badly against the man. Roundtree was upset at this, and put on the gloves herself. She then proceeded to box, while Schofield proceeded to have a heart attack."

From the Journal of Combative Sport index of boxing fatalities:

I see that squash is disappointed at not being included in the "olympic" games. They should be almost proud. The "olympics" are de-valued on a 4-yearly basis by the inclusion of ever more outlandish "sports". It is surely only a matter of time before bar-skittles is included. Athletics has its World Cup, as do all the other real sports. Squash, your World Championship medals are of a far higher value than any tainted "olympic gold" will ever be. Darts and a pint anyone?

For me, the litmus test for including a sport in the Olympics is if winning Olympic gold will be the pinnacle of achievement.

Golf fails this test hands down (so does tennis), but Sevens Rugby would be a tremendous inclusion. I would expect a lot of nations will want to participate, and hopefully the qualification criteria will be sufficiently liberal to make it a wonderfully international event - on top of the entertainment value that Sevens always provides.

Nice comment "curieux".

I wish this made it easier for fans to stomach the decision to include Golf instead of a real sport like Squash.

All the tremendous work and effort from grass roots to the very top squash pros has been ignored and an inclusion that would have revolutionised the sport has been denied again.

I am a golfer myself but from the Olympic criteria perspective there is no competition between Golf and Squash.

1) In what other sport would players in the physical condition of John Daly and Angle Cabrera have any hope of winning a medal?
2) Do people seriously think that Tiger Woods (Or any other golfer for that matter) will covet an Olympic medal over a green jacket?!
3) Sports looking to be included in the games have to prove that providing new facilities will be economically justifiable; Anyone checked out the price tag for a new Olympic golf course compared to a squash court recently?
4) 25 quid will get you a 45 court session and a squash racquet of your own compared to £150 - ££££ for golf clubs and add another couple of hundred quid for membership to a snobby Golf Club. How exactly is that accessible to youngsters from developing countries?

I just think the whole thing stinks.

Oh my Gosh! Are they serious? I'm all for a sport like Rugby going to the Olympics. But golf? With all the pro tours, does golf need the Olympics?

Or will the Olympics be better with or without golf? If I'm a golf enthusiast will I tune in to the Olympics to follow the golf event, or will I just go straight to the PGA?

I think it's a case of more means less for the Olympics and all the supporters and followers. Golf will just dilute the Olympics rather than enhance... Sigh!

'* attract a huge number of additional sports tourists to the Games
* Pack out an existing stadium for 2-3 days
* draw even greater interest in the Games amongst younger sporting fans'

I think people tend to forget what makes sevens so popular as a sport. Its not always the rugby on the pitch but the atmosphere created around it. The drinking culture and the sense of going to a party are going to be particularly hard to replicate - especially with the lack of alchohol at Olympic venues.

People I know don't go to the HK Sevens for the rugby, but for the party around it.

I get increasingly demoralised by the ridiculous choices made for inclusion by the IOC. Let's be honest, how many of us really think more highly of Tim Henman's record as a tennis player because he won an Olympic silver medal? How many of us can actually name any of the olympic champions in the sport since it came back in ... whenever it was! Tennis players want to win the grand slams, and (as Andy Murray perfectly illustrated in 2008) the olympics really isn't that important.

Likewise golf ... how seriously are the major players in the game really going to be taking it when they would rather win any of the four majors than the gold medal, as this is what their reputation will be based on.

Meanwhile, how does squash continue to be overlooked and ignored when it is absolutely clear that the players would consider participation in the games to be the absolute pinnacle of their sport ... much as it is for badminton, track cycling, rowing etc?

Oh ... that's right. Golf and Rugby Sevens will bring in more money because they can use the sports big names to sell the olympics to a wider audience.

No thanks.

I've been saying this for years. Why sevens though? Why not League and Union. They're different sports afterall. Also why is cricket not in there?

I don't think the olympics can represent the pinnacle of sporting achievement if say a weightlifter or a sprinter can be given the same prize as someone dancing with a ribbon or riding a horse.

Why is Lomu being cited to help Rugby 7's?

Instead of presenting the top players from times gone by they should use the best players from the 7's game to promote it. Oh right, because no-one knows or cars who any of them are. Most nations regularly send playrs to 'major' sevens tournaments that can not even get in their club sides on a regular basis.

I would pay to see a Wales sevens team that included Mike Phillips, James Hook, Shane Williams, Jamie Roberts and co, I am not interested in ones that include the likes of Tal Selley, Lee Beach and Rhod McAtee. Unless the IOC can guarentee the best players taking part then they should tell rugby where it can stick it's application.

It has all been said above; Sevens just about deserves to be there on merit, Golf....they've gone for the big names, but this leaves me feeling hollow.

Squash is most worthy of inclusion, an Olympic title would be the sport's pinnacle, but will probably never get there, due to its minority appeal, compared to the likes of golf and rugby.

I should add that squash would be a real boon for some of the nations who historically finish further down the medals table. I think I'm right in saying that the current world no.1's in the male and female games are from Egypt and Malaysia respectively. I can't see golf producing a gold medallist from outside the USA or Europe.