Waiting for the decision: Women's world No. 1 Nicol David (second from left) watching the IOC session via live streaming on Sunday night.
PETALING JAYA: It was with great disappointment that the squash community worldwide watched a third bid to be included in the Olympic Games rejected by the International Olympic Council (IOC).
The announcement that wrestling would be included in the 2020 Olympic Games was made on Sunday after the three sports in contention – squash, wrestling and baseball/softball – made their presentations at the IOC session in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Wrestling won 49 votes, followed by baseball/softball with 24 and squash with a mere 22.
The World Squash Federation (WSF) had made bids to be included in the 2012, 2016 and now the 2020 Olympics.
It was a tough fight for squash as wrestling, which has appeared in every edition of the Games except 1896, was riding high on sentiment after being dropped as a core sport in February by the IOC executive board.
Baseball/softball, seen to have less chance because baseball is not played in as many countries, became a late prospect after Tokyo on Saturday (Sunday morning in Malaysia) was awarded the right to host the 2020 Olympics. Japan is one of the top countries where the sport is widely played and watched.
The squash community and in particular fans and players in Malaysia were devastated to hear the news.
Said a clearly disappointed Nicol, who was watching the announcement via live streaming in Bangsar: "It's disappointing but wrestling were in the Olympics for a long time. We still had the best team though."
She tweeted: "We presented #squash at our very best to the IOC & WSF put up a strong case" and "It's disappointing that squash missed out today but our Vote4Squash campaign has brought the squash world closer..."
Men's world No. 1 Ramy Ashour, who was in Buenos Aires with the WSF team, said via Twitter: "We were the underdogs and competed like champions."
