Squash Magazine: In Your Dreams

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Why squash will never be in the Olympics

By Rod Symington, WSF Rules and Referees Committee

Rod Symington is on the WSF Rules and Referees Committee and is a consultant on Rules and Refereeing to the USA. He has also been the Tournament Referee for, among others, the Women's Worlds, Pan Am Games, and Junior Men's and Women's Worlds. To contact Rod with questions or to enquire about clinics and his Squash Rules for Players, email him at symingto@uvic.ca

As reported in last month's column, the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee has voted not to admit squash to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Squash was one of 18 sports rejected by the Board, including polo, surfing, bridge, chess, billiards, bowling and dance sport (say what?).

Year after year the President of the World Squash Federation, Susie Simcock, and the other members of the Management Committee travel thousands of miles promoting squash around the world and lobbying the IOC. But all to no avail.

Why can't squash get into the Olympics?

A clue can be found in the Report of the Olympic Programme Commission, issued in August 2002. Among the principles on which the consideration of a sport for the Olympics is to be based is this one:

“Global public and media interest in a sport must be considered as key elements in the analysis of sports for these are fundamental elements in the success of the Games.”

If this is, indeed, a “key element,” then squash in its present form will never gain entry. Global public interest? Global media interest? In squash? In your dreams, baby.

Squash is a wonderful sport to play, but let's not fool ourselves: there will never be global public or media interest in the sport in its present form. Most members of the public, even those keen on sport in general, haven't got a clue what is going on in a squash match—and many mistake the game for racquetball.

However, the Report of the Programme Commission does contain one ray of hope. The very first principle it enunciates reads:

“The Olympic Programme must not necessarily reflect the programme of a World Championship of the respective sport.”

In other words: you can change the Rules to make the event more attractive, if you want to. That, my friends, is precisely what squash ought to do if it wants to gain entry to the Games of 2012. Richard Pound, IOC Vice-President and himself a former squash player, is once reported to have said: “You people [i.e., those in charge of squash] ought to get your act together. Nobody is going to watch two guys hit the ball up and down the wall for two hours.”

He's right, of course: good squash consists largely of tight rail shots—which is boring to watch if you are not an aficionado of the sport.

The writing is on the wall: if you want squash to be included in the Olympics, make it more attractive. The only way squash will be included in the 2012 Games is by becoming the beach volleyball of the indoor court. This will require vision and leadership—and the courage to change the Rules to make the game comprehensible and appealing to the general public. There is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be different versions of the game. There are already: two scoring systems, and the men's PSA Tour has different rules. We can go one step further, if we have the courage to do so.

(What changes, if any, would you suggest be made to squash to make it more attractive to the public and the media? Please send your comments to editor@squashmagazine.com.)