Chasing Olympic dreams: Why some sports find it tougher to get Olympic recognition than others

The Olympic rings being displayed on the Thames river ahead of the 2012 London Games

“The Olympic Games were created for the exaltation of the individual athlete,” – Pierre de Coubertin, founder, International Olympics Committee

It’s hard to not care about the greatest sporting event on the planet. Nations measure their worth by the medals they win, with spectators around the world cheering on their respective countrymen and lapping up any inspirational tales the media unearths for them. On the other end of the spectrum are the sportsmen who consider participation in these quadrennial events a massive honour, probably the greatest of their careers. To win an Olympic medal would obviously be an even greater source of honour, but for the thousands of athletes who sweat and toil for recognition and reward, an opportunity to participate in this global event is often sufficient motivation to devote their lives to the cause.

This is, after all, a celebration of the human species and its physical prowess; a tournament which attempts to transcend politics and provide the stage for the best of the best to pit their physical talents against each other in arenas filled with adrenaline and testosterone. To be part of such a spectacle demands that the athletes spend their entire lives in the single-minded pursuit to become the selected few who will represent their countries. On rare occasions, athletes have even changed allegiances and notions of patriotism in their quest to enter these games.

But spare a thought for the many who find themselves on the periphery of the sporting community, only because their sport just isn’t a part of the Olympic Games.

The Olympics have evolved over the last century, moving from a tournament that extolled world unity and amateur pride, to one which runs on nationalistic pride, wide commercial interests and professionalism. In line with the growing commercial interests, for a sport or disciple to now qualify for the Olympics, it needs to, amongst many other things, be very popular. It has to further be TV-friendly and a revenue-generator for the host country.

For a sport or discipline to even be considered for inclusion in the list of Summer Olympics sports, it must be widely practised in a large number of countries, ideally spread out over all four continents. Further, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has a list of 33 evaluation criteria while assessing a sport’s suitability for inclusion in an Olympic programme. The list itself is divided into many categories which include history and tradition, universality, popularity, image and development.

But often these criteria do not seem sufficient reason to include a sport or discipline into the Olympics. Take the case of the most popular sport in the world, football, which already has a multi-billion dollar tournament called the FIFA World Cup, the ultimate goal for any practitioner of this sport. The Olympics are the poor man’s version of the World Cup, often the place for B-teams and youth teams to showcase their mettle for a chance to impress and eventually represent their country for the real deal. In an ideal and equal world, football’s place in the Olympics would be taken away and given to another sport for which Olympic gold would be the ultimate goal. Similar arguments hold for the non-inclusion of tennis.

The list of Olympic sports has changed considerably during the course of Olympic history, but has now officially been capped at 28. In the early days of the modern Olympics, the hosting countries were free to decide which sports to include, which led to sports such as tug-of-war, pigeon-shooting and pistol duelling to be independent medal-winning sports. However, since the IOC took over in 1924, there have been attempts to standardize the event, which while making the sports consistent over quadrennials, have also in the process taken away opportunities for fringe sports to bask in their few minutes of fame.

Earlier, there used to be demonstration sports in every Olympics to promote a local sport or to gauge public interest in the sport, but they have been dropped since 1992 with the only exception being wushu in the 2008 Olympics in China.

The 2012 Summer Olympic program in London featured 26 sports and a total of 39 disciplines, which left two open spots for sports. By a majority vote, the executive council of the 2016 Olympics chose golf and rugby-sevens. Given the stature of the Major Championships and relative importance of the Olympics to the careers of golfers, it is a matter of debate whether golf even needs to be in the Olympics.

Over the years, many other sports have campaigned for a spot in the Olympics with little success. The most famous example is netball which, after a long and painful two decades of lobbying, was finally recognized by the Olympics in 1995. It still has a long way to go before it is actually played in the Olympics, and for a sport that is played by around 20 million people in over 80 countries it is rather surprising that the sport has had to face such a battle. The primary cause of its non-inclusion stems from the fact that it is a sport dominated by female athletes, and historically women’s sports have always struggled at receiving Olympic recognition. For example, field hockey wasn’t opened to women until the 1980s.

Other sports which lie at the periphery of Olympics recognition include squash and other relatively less global sports such as racquetball, pelota vasca, roller sports and others. Squash players and associations have over the years lobbied for the sport to be accepted into the Olympics with little success. But it is the less popular sports that face an exceedingly uphill battle and are often trapped in a vicious circle.

For a sport to get a chance to be recognized by the Olympics, it needs to be popular enough with a global presence that justifies hosting it. However, unless a sport has a historical base like golf or football, it will need something unique for it to attract spectators and advertising (did someone say there’s a campaign for Quidditch to be included in the Olympics?). Thus, ironically, for a sport to be popular it needs the exposure and stage that only massive global competitions saturated in media coverage can provide.

Further, lack of Olympic recognition hampers the globalization of any sport, especially in developing countries. This is partly because of the paucity of funding in a non-Olympics recognized sport but mostly because there is a general lack of motivation amongst youngsters to embrace a sport in the absence of any great reward in sight.

But it is in the nature of sports to persevere, and the various sports associations will keep trying, attempting to slowly expand their base, participating in parallel tournaments such as The World Games to showcase the skills of their sportsmen. Hopefully, they will one day get their chance to be part of the greatest sporting event on the planet. Or alternatively, create their own.