Feelers from IOC to include cue sports in Olympics: Guillaume

Vasco, Sep 1 (UNI) Pascal Guillaume, president of the International Billiards and Snooker Federation, said here that events like the Vascon-Manisha IBSF World U-21 championship will help push cue sports into the Olympic arena.

''There will be a Youth Olympics in 2010. Five cities have made their bids for these games. They are: Algiers (Algeria), Athens (Greece), Moscow (Russia), Turin (Italy), and Singapore,'' Mr Guillaume said while speaking to media persons here today.

Following a postal vote by IOC members, the host city for the 2010 event will be announced at the end of February. The Youth Olympic Games will bring together approximately 3,500 (14 to 18 year old) athletes. The IOC has also indicated that proposals from sports federations to integrate youth-driven disciplines that are not part of the Olympic Games may be accepted.

Sports that do not get into the summer and winter Olympics will get a chance to be there, Mr Guillaume said and added that they had got feelers from the IOC that they will recognize cue sports.

''They have certain criteria, like number of countries, say fifty, parity between men and women in which we have some work to do, anti-doping procedures and so on. We are busy preparing a document for that,'' he added.

There is a suggestion that Billiards and Snooker Federation of India can push for cue sports to be included in the Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in Pune in 2008. At least it can be a demonstration event there. The sponsors of the World Under 21 championship are from Pune, Mr Guillaume informed.

UNI