GROWING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR SOFTBALL’S OLYMPIC CAMPAIGN
Olympic medalist Danielle Stewart – “The mounting worldwide support for our campaign is really motivating as we prepare for our critical presentation to the IOC next week”
Lausanne,
(Switzerland); 13th June 2009:
Softball’s campaign to be elected onto the 2016 Olympic Games Programme
is receiving growing public support around the world according to a
recent independent Internet survey and social networking sites.
A survey on the Canadian Olympic Committee website (http://www.olympic.ca/en/)
has polled nearly ten thousand people with softball leading the race of
the seven sports seeking to gain Olympic Games status in 2016.
Today softball fans across the world are – for the fifth consecutive year – celebrating World Softball Day, which for 2009 has been themed as BackSoftball Day in support of the International Softball Federation’s campaign to get the sport reinstated on the Olympic Programme.
Thousands of people from around the world have ‘Become a Fan’ on the BackSoftball page on social networking site Facebook while countless other blogs and websites promote the sport and its mission to provide a positive Olympic model for the 21st century. The ISF’s YouTube channel continues to rack up thousands of views, with visitors logging on daily from countries all around the globe.
BackSoftball Athlete Ambassador Danielle Stewart (Australia), who won a bronze medal at last year’s Olympic softball competition, said, “The mounting worldwide support for our campaign is really motivating as we prepare for our critical presentation to the IOC next week.”
One of the many who are a ‘Fan’ on the BackSoftball page on Facebook, Stewart is here in Lausanne along with other members of the BackSoftball team that will present to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board on Monday, underlining the progress and development the sport has made in recent years and the opportunities it provides in under-developed and troubled areas of the world.
Two-time Olympic softball medalist Jessica Mendoza (Team USA, 2008 & 2004) was ‘tweeting’ to softball fans through social networking site Twitter while part of ESPN’s announce teams covering the recently-concluded college softball national championships. She too is part of the delegation currently in Lausanne.
Softball was first featured in the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 and last year’s competition in Beijing was hugely successful with a total attendance close to 180,000 and a continuation of the sport’s excellent record of no positive doping tests at any of the Olympics since the sport’s debut on the world’s stage 12 years earlier.
A final decision on which sports will be added to the current roster of 26 at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games will be made at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen in October this year.
Further information is available in the OTHER DOCUMENTS section of www.BackSoftball.com.
For more information please contact ISF Director of Communications Bruce Wawrzyniak at brucew@internationalsoftball.com, +1 813 864 0100 or +1 813 453 8762 or David Alexander at David.Alexander@Calacus.com or +44 7802 412424