IOC Publishes Olympic Programme Report

IOC president Jacques Rogge
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For rowing the Olympics is the pinnacle of sporting competition and winning Olympic gold the ultimate achievement, so it is not surprising that plenty of interest has been generated around the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) July 8, 2005 session in Singapore.

This is the first time in recent years that members of the IOC will vote, sport by sport, on inclusion into the summer Olympic programme for the 2012 Olympic Games. A vote of 51 percent is necessary for the sport to stay in the programme.

The decision to have the inclusion of sports go to a vote is in the Olympic Charter and IOC president Jacques Rogge has decided to act on it. Following his involvement in the Sydney Olympics, Rogge wanted to review the size and cost of the Games and keep it in touch with today’s society. The Olympic Programme Commission was therefore asked to evaluate all of the Olympic sports. The Commission developed a set of criteria in order to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each sport and their value to the Olympic programme.

Yesterday the report was released.

A list of 33 criteria was proposed and late last year a questionnaire reflecting these criteria was sent to the 28 summer Olympic Federations and five selected federations of potential Olympic sports. There was also extra information supplied by the IOC, IOC experts and partners as well as studies of the press and television coverage from the Athens Olympics. This information was then assessed to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each sport.

Key Areas of Assessment

Universality – The number of member national federations, number of active members and spread of medals awarded at Athens.
Popularity – Ticket sales, media accreditation, television and press coverage.
Image and Environment – Gender equity, transparency and fairness in play, appeal of the sport and the environmental action of the sports.
Athlete Welfare – The number of anti-doping tests carried out and the number of violations.
Development – The existence of a strategic plan and level of financing for development.
Costs – Venue expense and operating costs at the Olympics.

Rowing compared to other Olympic sports

Rowing has 118 National Federations involved in the sport. This equals 57 percent of all National Olympic Committees worldwide. The average number of participating national federations across all 28 Olympic sports plus the five potential sports is 74 percent. The highest number goes to athletics with 100 percent participation. The lowest is triathlon and golf, both with 48 percent.

Of the number of member National Federations that took part in qualifying events for Athens, rowing had 59 percent participation with the overall average of all sports being 50 percent. Indoor volleyball has the highest rate (100 percent) and waterpolo had the lowest (13 percent).

The amount of ticket sales against number available for sale for rowing at the Sydney Olympics equaled 86 percent. This dropped to 62 percent at Athens. Across the 28 sports the average for each sport was 86 percent at Sydney and 88 percent at Athens. Rhythmic gymnastics and tennis were at the top end both having 100 percent sales at Sydney. At Athens sailing and road cycling both had 100 percent sales. At the other end of the scale, lowest sales went to sailing at Sydney with 36 percent sales and at Athens race walking had the lowest with 11 percent of available tickets sold.

Under the criteria of image and environment, rowing has 33 percent membership of women on the FISA executive committee. This is well above the overall sports average of 15 percent.

Anti-doping statistics for rowing has 0.15 percent (2003) of all rowers tested resulting in an anti-doping rule violation. This is below the overall average of 0.37 percent. Golf is at the top end with 1.67 percent violations. At the other end of the scale hockey, triathlon, softball and modern pentathlon had no violations.

The FISA Council is currently studying the IOC report and will present its view at the Ordinary Congress in Gifu, Japan, just after the World Rowing Championships in September.

For complete details and the full report, please refer to the IOC website here.

The World Rowing team values feedback.