Quote WARRIORCRAIG="WARRIORCRAIG"Completely agree. I had no interest in the football at all. IMO it's not an Olympic sport if a gold medal isn't the absolute pinnacle that everyone is striving towards. Football, tennis, golf and rugby in particular all would have 4 or 5 trophies that people would consider more important than an Olympic medal.'"
Whilst I agree with you on this point, the fact is that football was an Olympic event long before the World Cup came to be. As such it is very much an intergrated part of Olympic history (even if it has long been essentially an expanded U-21 tournament). Although it probably ceased to be the pinnacle achievement within football sometime in the 1950's.
The other sports you mention above though definately have no part in the games in my opinion. But the simply truth is that the IOC want to make the games the number one sporting event on the planet and as such see the inclusion of those sports as being beneficial to raising the profile & standing of the movement (not to mention the level of corporate sponsorship from the really big guns of 21st Century global business).
In much the same way, this line of thinking led to the Olympic movement quitely dropping the amatuer only stance in the 1980's because they realised that a continuation of that rather exclusive ideal would ultimately lead to the Olympic Games becoming a second rate sporting event. Faced with the prospect of hosting an out-dated anachronistic event or adjusting their stance in order to compete with the increasingly powerful worldwide sports, they not too surprisingly jumped headlong into professionlism. It was a choice which was quite frankly unavoidable.
Having made this decision, it was inevitable that the IOC would then seek to include any sport that it feels will enable it to enhance its position as the World's number one sporting spectacle, regardless of whether winning Gold within the games is the ultimate in that particular sport.
One of the most obvious examples of this is Tennis, a sport with a decent global profile. Does anyone even remotely believe that, given half a chance , Andy Murray wouldn't swap his performance against Roger Federer last Sunday for his result against the same player on the same court just 28 days earlier when the greatest prize in tennis slipped away from him. Murray's shattered reaction at losing the Wimbledon singles final contrasted sharply with Federer's rather more shrug of the shoulders response to coming second last week, which can't be merely put down to the two players very different temperements.
As for Rugby League's possible role in future Olympics? As nice as it would be to see the game's top stars being a part of the sporting jamboree, it is highly doubtful that the game has a high enough profile to meet the criteria that the IOC look for when considering new sports. I guess it wouldn't do any harm in trying to get the sport included at some future date, but I think we all know the RL powers that be would have their work cut out in order to make the case for inclusion convincing. It's a nice pipe dream but I think most of us would be amazed if it ever came to pass.
