Special report: 2008 Olympic Games     

    by Xinhua writers Gao Peng, Zhou Yan

    BEIJING, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Sports that remain on the Olympic program should be widely practiced across the world, aspirational to young athletes and have strong public support, a senior official with the International Olympic Committee said here Saturday.

    When asked to predict what sports would be excluded from the 2020 Games, IOC Press Commission Chairman Kevan Gosper replied with a simple: "I don't know."

    "I don't know what sports would come under pressure in 2020. Butit's important that the Committee keeps on the program sports that are popular, attractive to young people, have an element of entertainment and are attractive to broadcasting," he said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua at the Main Press Center of the Beijing Games.

    Olympic sports have to be competitive, exciting and attractive to the public, he said. "They have to be conducted at a high level of the values of sportsmanship, fair play, respect for the rules and the umpires."

    Meanwhile, Gosper said there should be stability in a high proportion of Olympic sports for the aspiration of the young people. "Otherwise, young athletes who want to go the Olympic Games would be uncertain which games would be there when they reach maturity."

    Gosper said he had been sorry to see softball and baseball would not survive the 2012 Games. "Softball is a strong women's sport -- and we tried to achieve the good equity between sports for women and sports for men," he said.

    "I was also sorry to see baseball out... It was still not played significantly internationally. It was of course a huge sport in the U.S., a very big sport in South America and also very strong in parts of Asia, but not significant in Europe."

    "I personally feel we should have a baton ball game in the Olympic Games," he said.

    IOC officials voted in 2005 to drop softball and baseball from the Summer Games after Beijing, although both sports are making a bid to have the IOC reconsider the decision.

    Last year, the IOC agreed to keep a core group of more than two dozens sports in future Olympics and allow room for a few new sports to be included at each Games.

    Under the process, the IOC will approve a bloc of 25-26 entrenched sports and can add two or three more to stay within a maximum of 28.