POSTED: April 30th 2009
InDepth
Baseball focuses on Europe for 2016
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
LONDON/TAMPA: Baseball is achieving significant, positive strides in pursuit of both a return to the Olympic Games and worldwide growth.
Those were the welcome assurances brought back by Dr Harvey Schiller, president of the International Baseball Federation from a double swing around Europe – first to the International Olympic Committee and then to the Confederation of European Baseball.
The visit to the IOC in Lausanne helped Schiller focus on the exact procedure being followed up in the run-up to Copenhagen in October. This is when the IOC votes on which, out of seven candidate sports, it will admit or readmit to the Summer Games programme in 2016.
Schiller said: “I stopped in at the IOC to make sure we knew all the arrangements for when the seven candidate sports go before the IOC executive board – so we could understand the timing and the material we can distribute.”
Candidate sports
Wider significance for the movement concerned the number of sports which may remain in contention right up until the IOC votes in Copenhagen in October.
Schiller said: “Originally we thought all seven sports would go to Copenhagen then they decided that the executive board would recommend two for votes.
“Now it seems the thinking is that they may recommend more than two, depending on how close those sports may be to each other in terms of the evaluation report.”
Schiller is proud of the work being undertaken to grow baseball worldwide and he gained a direct update on progress in Europe after attending a meeting in Frankfurt of the executive committee of the Confederation of European Baseball.
He said: “I went there to listen on how we’re growing the sport over in Europe and to update them on the state of our pitch for 2016 and clarify our actions regarding women’s baseball. I think people are satisfied we are doing our best job for 2016.”
Baseball has strengthened its pursuit of re-entry into the Olympic movement with the roll-out of proposals to add a women’s competition to its proposed Games schedule.
Women's competition
Schiller said: “We had been the only one of the seven candidate sports to submit a bid for a single-focus competitions. Five of the others, which might be considered men’s sports, had also proposed a women’s competitions while softball, mainly a women’s sport, has added a men’s competition.
“That made it important for us in baseball to show how much this sport of ours is progressing for both men and women. The women’s side of baseball has been strong represented for a very long time and we would certainly be prepared by 2016 to run a women’s tournament at the Olympics.”
Schiller believes baseball is now “second only to soccer” in terms of growth both worldwide in general and in Europe in particular.
He said: “Italy and the Netherlands are now very, very strong and it’s important to see Germany and the Czech Republic both running strong programmes. It’s all looking very positive.”
One of the key points on the agenda was the discussion about the extensive plans for baseball's World Cup to be held in Europe this September.
Business partners
Lobbying is relentless with Schiller and other IBAF officials making personal phone calls and meeting in person with IOC members, federations and officials of sport and government from around the world almost daily, and will continue to do so until the vote is cast.
While Schiller was in Europe, secretary-general John Ostermeyer was off to Asia for meetings with federations and new business partners, while other officials were meeting about youth and women's baseball in Portugal, France, Belgium and other countries.
The next crucial appointment on the bid trail will be in mid June in Lausanne when the IOC will allow the 2016 bid sports the opportunity to present their campaign strategies to the IOC members at an extraordinary meeting.
Picture (above right): Martin Miller, president of the European confederation and Harvey Schiller
Keywords · IBAF · Harvey Schiller · Martin Miller · 2016 Games · CEB
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