Baseball plans to seek reinstatement (AP) Updated: 2005-10-08 10:22 LONDON (AP) -- Three months after being cut from
the 2012 Olympics, baseball found out Friday how close the vote was -- very
close.
Baseball lost its place in the Olympics by three votes, international
federation president Aldo Notari told The Associated Press.
The result -- 54-50 against, with 53 votes in favor needed to remain -- was
tight enough for the sport to push for a vote of reinstatement in February.
"We have a duty to get back in the Olympics," Notari said.
The International Olympic Committee voted in July to cut softball and
baseball after the 2008 Beijing Games, the first sports removed from the program
since polo in 1936.
The vote totals were kept secret at the time, but the softball and baseball
federations later asked the IOC for the figures.
The vote count for softball was released in late August. The sport fell one
vote short of making the cut -- 52-52, with one abstention.
Baseball also needed a majority of 53 votes to stay on the Olympic program.
The figures were released by the IOC on Friday.
Notari said baseball would join softball in seeking another vote at the IOC's
next general assembly in February on the eve of the Winter Games in Turin,
Italy. Softball has already said it will try to overturn the decision.
|