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IFNA boss laments struggles to make Olympics
BY Andre Lowe Observer staff reporter lowea@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, July 05, 2009
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will meet in Denmark later this year to discuss whether or not netball should be added to the sports to be contested at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, but President of the International Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA), Jamaican Molly Rhone, is not overly optimistic.
Rhone, who recently spoke to the Sunday Observer before jetting off to England to discuss the upcoming World Netball Series, is not even expecting the sport to be played at the 2020 Olympics despite a marked growth in the number of countries that play the sport.
Said Rhone: "There is absolutely no prospect for (getting netball into the Olympics for) 2012 or 2016 and I cannot even say we'll be there in 2020 either. Although we really have high hopes and we know how great a sport netball is, we do have some work to do."
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown is among a number of high-profile lobbyist who are pushing to have the sport - which is played by over 20 million women and men worldwide - included at the 2012 Games in London.
However, Rhone - who was first elected to head the world netball body in 2003 - is wary of the work that needs to be done in order to satisfy the Olympic Committee.
"It's quite a long process and I think people need to understand it's not as easy as some think. We've been
having meetings with the Sports Department of
the International Olympic Committee and while we're all very pleased with how netball is progressing, getting into the Olympics is not an easy task," she lamented.
Despite being played in over 70 countries across the globe, netball is still considered a game played principally among Commonwealth countries. But this is a misconception which must be changed if the organisation is to successfully lobby the IOC.
Rhone pointed to several developments in non-traditional netball countries as a step in the right direction.
According to Rhone, "From the reviews I've had with them (IOC) I think we need to expand a bit more outside of the Commonwealth.
"We have made some inroads into Argentina; we have heard recently that Costa Rica and Cuba are interested and we just had Switzerland coming on board to apply for membership," she added.
The Jamaican administrator is also working to get the sport played at major regional multi-sport games - such as the All-Africa and All-Asia Games - across the world.
"Everybody who sees our game for the first time is impressed so I'm not discouraged, but we just have to be real and acknowledge that there's a lot of work to be done before we get there," she stated.
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