GET RUGBY TO THE OLYMPICS

Some boys involved in Cape Town Tens and UCT Ikeys Tigers Intervarsity shenanigans have come up with another brain child – a petition to get rugby to the Olympics.

olympic-rugger
www.olympic-rugby.org

Did you watch and 7s this weekend? Ja, well, just imagine that in a 90 000 seater stadium packed full of mad rugby fans like at the Hong Kong 7s. Epic!

Check, check, check it out:

The petition to get Rugby to the Olympics

Rugby is competing for inclusion to the Olympic Games with several other sports, like Karate, Golf, Squash and possibly even underwater Chess, Tug of War or something similarly exotic. In 2005 the International Rugby Board failed to get rugby in the Olympic Games 2012 in London. The olympic-rugby.org petition aims to swing the vote this time and generate as much publicity and momentum for the cause as possible, before the decision gets made in October 2009. Rugby is a team sport, so we must team up, scrum down and make it happen. Crouch, touch and pause – Engage!

What exactly do olympic-rugby.org do with the petition signatures?

The IOC, the International Olympic Committee is meeting in June 2009 to discuss potential new sports to be included, Golf, Karate, Squash all being serious contenders. In October a decision on the Olympic Sports Program for 2016 will be made at a meeting in Copenhagen – there are two vacant slots! The National Olympic Committees (NOC) will send their representatives to decide at the conference. You and everybody else is free to contact their country’s committee member(s) and make a case for your sport’s / rugby’s inclusion. The NOC’s and their members can be found here: https://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/noc/index_uk.asp Olympic-rugby.org is simplifying that process and provides a one stop platform to channel the combined forces of the rugby world towards the IOC by sending the petition signatures and motivations per country to each IOC member and the National Olympic Committees. The olympic-rugby.org Forwards maul perfectly off the lineout, strong pick and go and they are over the line, delivering 8 million signatures on the final whistle to win the game!

Sick!

At the time this is being sent the petition has been online for 96 hours, attracting 3632 signatures from 89 countries – Please check on https://www.olympic-rugby.org for current figures.

Add you name and let’s make this happen!

We end off with this awesome piece of rugby history. The USA playing France in the Final of the 1924 Paris Olympics. Take a look at the crowd, the place was absolutely packed! Unfathomable that rugby got excluded from the Games shortly afterwards!