Softball's ouster from the Olympics last month came by one vote, according to totals made public Friday, and U.S. sports officials and softball leaders expressed hope that it could be restored for the 2012 London Games.
With 105 ballots distributed for the July 8 vote in Singapore, softball needed a simple majority of 53 to stay on the Olympic program. With an unidentified delegate abstaining, the 104 votes were evenly split, 52-52, ousting the sport.
The International Olympic Committee released the vote count to International Softball Federation officials, who had made a special plea to obtain it. No names were included.
"It's very disappointing to lose by one vote, especially when there's an abstention," softball federation president Don Porter said in a telephone interview. At the same time, he said, "I wonder who the 52 are who voted against us. That's my concern."
Peter Ueberroth, the U.S. Olympic Committee chairman, said he has been told by at least four IOC members that they were simply confused, thinking they were voting against baseball when they were voting against softball.
At the time of the vote, IOC President Jacques Rogge said there would be no reconsideration of the 2012 program balloting. But the totals strongly suggest a push to reconsider softball's 2012 status, Ueberroth said.
"This makes it abundantly clear that the IOC, in its fairness, as it has always shown, will certainly allow for a re-vote," he said.
The next IOC general assembly will be in February, immediately before the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.
When baseball and softball were ousted beginning in 2012 by IOC delegates meeting last month, they became the first sports excluded from the Olympics since polo was booted in 1936. The 2008 Games in Beijing will feature 28 sports; the number will drop to 26 in 2012. The 2016 program will be reviewed in 2009.
Baseball, softball and modern pentathlon had been targeted for elimination since 2002. All three survived a vote three years ago in Mexico City. Modern pentathlon survived the Singapore vote as well.
Before the Singapore vote, baseball was thought to be the one sport perhaps most at risk because major league players don't take part in the Games and because the sport has been awash in doping-related issues.
Softball was thought to be safe, in part because the IOC has long been dedicated to increasing the numbers of female athletes at the Games. The sport has been played at the last three Summer Olympics. The U.S. has won the gold medal each time.
