Sport

Millar accuses IOC of not 'moving with times'

Olympic Games Dr Syd Millar, president of the International Rugby Board, yesterday accused the Olympic community of failing …

Sat Jul 09 2005 - 01:00

Olympic Games
Dr Syd Millar, president of the International Rugby Board, yesterday accused the Olympic community of failing to "move with the times" after they voted against including rugby sevens in a modernised programme of sports.

Rugby had launched a concerted effort to regain its status as an Olympic sport but missed out after the International Olympic Committee decided to ditch baseball and softball and not replace them.

Rugby had topped a short-list of potential new sports and had the backing of IOC president Jacques Rogge. But a reduced programme of 26 sports will now make up the London 2012 Games and Millar believes the IOC have missed a trick. "There has been much talk in the sporting world about the need for the Olympic Games to move with the times and be relevant to today's youth, athletes and society. The world is evolving at a rapid pace and the Olympic sports programme should reflect this.

"Rugby is played by three million people around the world including talented athletes from the all the continents of the world. The result of this decision not to add new sports is also very disappointing for the smaller nations of the world and African nations who often have little opportunity to compete at the highest levels in the Olympic Games. Rugby sevens, with Fiji as the reigning world champion, provides these nations with the opportunity to be very competitive," he said.

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Millar was confident sevens would win the vote ahead of squash and karate because of its commercial potential.

"In terms of broadcast, commercial and ticket sales opportunities it has been demonstrated through the IOC's own evaluation process that rugby sevens is among the top five in most categories in comparison to the existing Olympic sports," he said. "In the last 12 months 86 countries have competed at IRB Sevens events, the Rugby World Cup Sevens in March at Hong Kong was played in front of 120,000 spectators and was broadcast to 300 million homes with a potential audience of 700 million in 153 territories."

The US will remain the Olympic rugby champions. Rugby was introduced to the Games in 1900. Only two sides competed in 1908 when Australia beat Britain. It was not played at Stockholm in 1912 but returned after World War One and America beat France in 1920 and 1924 to win gold. Four years later the IOC turned down the request for rugby to be staged at the Amsterdam Games and it has not returned since.