Selecting the Olympic Sports1 There are 28 sports permitted in the Summer Olympic
Games. The list of Olympic Sports has many of the world’s
best-loved sports on it, such as baseball, judo, soccer, tennis,
and volleyball. This list of sports hadn’t changed in 70 years,
5 and the process for changing these sports is long and difficult.
That is why it was surprising news when the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that it was studying
new sports for the list. At a meeting in Singapore in 2005, the
IOC voted on each of the 28 sports from the 2004 Olympic
10 Games in Athens, Greece. Twenty-six of the 28 sports were
selected for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, which took
place in London, England. The two sports that did not receive
50 percent of the votes were baseball and softball.
Because these two sports were not selected, the IOC
15 started the process of voting for two new sports. The five
sports to select from were roller skating, golf, rugby, squash,
and karate. After the first vote, karate and squash were
submitted to the IOC for the final vote.
To become an Olympic sport, a sport must receive two-
20 thirds of the votes of the IOC. When the final vote took place,
squash received 39 “yes” votes and 63 “no” votes. Karate
received 38 “yes” votes and 63 “no” votes. It meant that
neither squash nor karate would feature in the 2012 Olympic
Games. And sad fans didn’t believe that their sports could be
25 selected for the 2016 Olympic Games.
Adapted from Anderson, Neil J. - Active Skills for Reading -
second Edition