No more hardball or softball in the Olympic games:
Reversing the expansion instincts that have gripped the Olympic movement for more than 50 years, the International Olympic Committee voted baseball and softball out of the Games in 2012 at its meeting in Singapore today, and instead of replacing them, simply decided to go small.
“We are now an Olympics of 26 sports,” the committee’s president, Dr. Jacques Rogge, told reporters after the vote.
The surprise came in two waves. First, the decision to drop baseball and softball came when the 114 committee members were asked to approve or disapprove all 28 summer Olympic sports. That followed a week of speculation by members that none of the sports would be eliminated.
Instead, the committee failed to support baseball, which officially joined the Games in 1992 and softball, which was added in 1996.
It was the first time the International Olympic Committee eliminated any sports in 69 years.
Both baseball and softball suffered from low international support because they are not widely played, despite their Olympic inclusion, and remained dominated by North American teams. Cuba won three of the four baseball gold medals and the United States won the other.
The United States won all three softball gold medals.
The swimming and the beach volleyball are the highlights of the summer games for me.