Inclusion at Olympic Games could change the face of squash

Just before Christmas last year, James Willstrop travelled to Lausanne, Switzerland to attend a sports conference at which he was due to be part of a presentation on the credentials of squash as an Olympic sport. He was the world No 1 at the time and delegates were shown a promotional video squash authorities had put together to state their case for an Olympic bid. It is a snazzy two-and-a-half-minute video, the kind of soft and hard sell the world's top airlines love in their ads (we care, we are global, we are cool), a suitably grand, rising background score and moody lighting that makes everyone look so Hollywood. It is impossible to miss the messages of Nicol David, one of the greatest players of all time, and Ramy Ashour, the current Egyptian world No 1 (who looks Hollywood in a dark alley). Above all, though, the fact of the video itself at the centre of a global campaign of gathering force (endorsed by big-name athletes from a number of other sports, including tennis), indicates the deep seriousness with which squash regards the gaining of Olympic status. After the presentation, after Willstrop had made time from squash's crazy, globally zig-zagging schedule to go to Lausanne (and miss out on Christmas at home), after the words of David and Ashour, two of the game's biggest draws, some International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials still went to Willstrop and asked him whether the game's best players would actually turn up at the Olympics. Willstrop is a particularly articulate and intelligent athlete, author of a fine, sensitive book about life on the circuit, and passionate about the Olympic push. He could not believe it. He remembers thinking: "I was, like, I don't really know how much more we can give you" - to make the IOC understand. He said: "I am here today, standing here today, I care so much that I bothered to come here to try and speak to you. I could've been home for Christmas enjoying it and I am on a flight to Lausanne because we want to speak to you and we desperately want this. There is no question." The Olympics, you could conclude, just do not get squash. * * * On September 8 this year, in Buenos Aires, the IOC will take a decision on which of Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul will host the 2020 Games. It will also decide which one of squash, wrestling or baseball and softball (combined) will become an Olympic sport. Wrestling was dropped from the Olympic roster earlier this year and baseball and softball were after the Beijing Games. They have an Olympic history at least, and in the case of wrestling, considerable pedigree. Squash has only a tortured history of failure at recognition. Twice before, in 2005 and 2009, squash bid for Olympic status (for the and 2016 Games) and twice they failed. Both times, but especially in 2005, the scars ran deep. In 2005, in Singapore, squash (and karate) had obtained the required majority vote from the IOC executive board to be added. That decision needed ratification from the larger IOC session of more than 100 members. Squash got a majority vote but not the two-thirds it needed. By the time golf and rugby sevens were initiated as Olympic disciplines in 2009 (for the 2016 Games), however, voting rules had changed so that the two needed just a 50 per cent majority in the general session to be added. It stung squash, moving even a man as equanimous as Jahangir Khan to something warmer than equanimity. Jahangir is the greatest squash player of all time, one of the 20th century's most formidable professional athletes (he was unbeaten in competitive play in 555 matches over nearly five years in the '80s). In the squash world, he is an apposite giant, one who captures better than he knows the low-key, self-effacing spirit of the sport. He was president of the World Squash Federation (WSF) for six years from 2002, in charge during the 2005 bid and quietly riled by other sports that have been given Olympic status ahead of squash. "We got so close then," he says. "It was in Singapore, and London had been chosen for 2012 when they didn't pick squash. There are some sports - I don't want to take credit away from them - but you see how many people play that game or follow it and they get into the Olympics and when they do, we sit there shocked they got in ahead." It probably cuts him as deeply as it does current players, especially those from countries which do not deal so heavily in Olympic gold medals. At his peak, Jahangir would have been a certain shout for three, maybe even four golds, thereby potentially doubling Pakistan's all-time gold medal haul of three. He says he misses seeing an Olympic gold in his vast trophy cabinet; David's opening line in the Squash 2020 video is that she would trade all her world titles for an Olympic gold. * * * Seen logically, squash should be a shoo-in. On his travels Jahangir, who is now an honorary president at the WSF, meets people who simply assume that squash is already an Olympic sport; the game has a well-established, if slightly haphazard, circuit for men and women; 135 countries from around the world have organised structures for squash and national federations with membership to the WSF. The number of participants most often bandied around in squash circles is 20 million worldwide. That sounds both ridiculous and reasonable; ridiculous because you have to be sceptical of the methods of counting any number that large, but reasonable because squash does have the massive amateur participation racket sports tend to have. All put together, at its core, squash - at least to those who follow it - has retained a type of endearing amateurism, in the way it is played and organised, but mostly in the way that it is untouched by the rampant commercialism other sports are drowning in (the most lucrative prize money is for the World Open winner, a total of US$30,000 (Dh110,000). That should chime with an Olympian spirit except, of course, that there is no such thing as the old Olympian spirit anymore. Less spiritually, but perhaps no less opaquely, there are 39 criteria set by the IOC across eight categories which sports must fulfil to some unspecified degree to become an Olympic discipline. Some of these are gloriously vague and unquantifiable. But in truth such selections are ultimately the bastard children from the communion of all kinds of tensions, histories, corruption and politics among voting members. Why has squash not made the Olympics? "We don't know, we can't say really," Willstrop says. "We don't know how the IOC think, really. It's difficult to get into their heads. They are completely separate from us, they don't think the way squash thinks, they don't understand the way we think so we're trying to tell them how much this means to us." * * * We often get so sucked into mainstream sport that it becomes easy to forget why Olympic status is such a big deal for many sports. For football, tennis and now golf - included at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 - the Olympics are almost irrelevant; their best players are often absent (thus the question Willstrop was asked in Lausanne). Does all other sport need the Olympics to give itself meaning and status? Maybe they do, or maybe, as Willstrop points out, they need it for more tangible reasons: the media coverage a sport gets from the Olympics has massive implications for the game's profile and funding. But it is also just about being part of something like a community, if that is not too corny a sentiment. "It's the biggest sporting festival in the world, the biggest sporting celebration that there is," Willstrop says. "Everybody watches it, everybody tunes in. It is the pinnacle of most sports, although that is a grey area because there are still quite a lot of high-profile sports in the Games that perhaps don't see it as their pinnacle. But for most sports it definitely is. "It was very difficult last summer when everyone was talking about the Olympics in London and we were there, it couldn't have been more perfect. It was really sad to not be part of that." Five greatest squash players of all time Jahangir Khan Inheritor of the celebrated Khan dynasty begun by Hashim, there can be no doubt Jahangir, above, was the greatest player in the history of squash. He won a record 10 British Open titles (the Wimbledon of squash) and six World Opens and even went over and dominated the North American circuit after getting bored winning in Europe and Asia. Jansher Khan Not from the same family of Khans but the same region and part, ultimately, of the same tradition, Jansher was the prodigy who toppled Jahangir. He was probably a more outrageous stroke player. Nobody has won more than his eight World Opens and he won six British Opens, as well. Geoff Hunt Hunt was the man before the Pakistanis took over squash. The Australian was ranked No 1 from 1975 to 1980, when he also won the first four World Opens. He won eight British Open titles between 1969 and 1981 as well as 178 of the 215 tournaments he entered. Jonah Barrington One of the most successful British players, Barrington changed the game with his focus on fitness. He was never the most talented but he won six British Opens between 1967 and 1973. Peter Nicol The Scot edges out the Canadian Jonathon Power, with whom he established a great rivalry in the early 2000s. No ball was too lost a cause for Nicol to retrieve. He was top-ranked for two years, 2002-03, winning two British Opens and a World Open. Follow us

Inclusion at Olympic Games could change the face of squash

Millions are playing squash worldwide, a fact proponents hope the International Olympic Committee will consider for the 2020 Games, writes Osman Samiuddin.