Anti-doping officials said that the IOC "lost the anti-doping battle at Rio but can redeem itself in time" for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. The 59-member global Institute of National Anti-Doping Organisations (iNADO) said in a "strongly-worded" statement that the IOC had "failed the clean athletes of the world" at the Summer Games in August. INADO said, "Sadly for sport, just as the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games are remembered by (Canadian sprinter) Ben Johnson’s infamy, this year’s Games will be remembered by participation of athletes served by a Russian system that corrupted clean sport." INADO CEO Joseph de Pencier said that the IOC must ensure that "the reception of Russian athletes in PyeongChang is very different than the one in Rio" (REUTERS, 10/6).
A senior official of the World Baseball Softball Confederation said that baseball will be played "over nine innings and softball at seven innings when they make a comeback to the Olympic program at the 2020 Tokyo Games." The official said that "although the organization had once proposed shortening baseball to seven innings to cut the game time to meet TV broadcasting needs, it now plans to go with nine innings as the number of teams competing was reduced from eight to six." The official added that the "duration of a softball game will remain at seven innings" (KYODO, 10/6).
The Budapest election committee has "approved a journalist's initiative to hold a city referendum on the Hungarian capital's bid to host the 2024 Olympics." The decision published Thursday can be appealed within 15 days to Hungary's supreme court, "which earlier this year blocked a similar referendum on the bid." On Wednesday, another initiative by investigative journalist Katalin Erdelyi -- to hold a nationwide referendum on Budapest's bid -- "was rejected by the national election committee" (AP, 10/6).
