Golf’s best must tee it up to warrant Olympic spots
ONE of New Zealand’s top Olympic officials says golf doesn’t deserve its place on the Games programme if there is a mass noshow from its leading players at Rio.
Already several of the world’s top golfers have confirmed they are not fronting in Rio, with others admitting they’re seriously considering withdrawing.
So far Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Graeme McDowell have confirmed their absence, while world No 1 Jason Day, No 2 Jordan Spieth, No 3 Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Danny Willett, Hideki Matsuyama and Shane Lowry are among those expressing doubts about whether they’ll make the start-line.
Former New Zealand Olympic Committee secretary-general and now IOC member Barry Maister yesterday told Newstalk ZB that if golf presented in Rio without a hefty swag of its leading players then there would have to be consequences.
‘‘It tells me they shouldn’t be there,’’ Maister said when asked by host Tony Veitch what mass withdrawals said about the future of golf at the Games.
‘‘The Olympics is about the best and they pledged the best . . . quite frankly any sport that cannot deliver its best athletes in my view should not be there.
‘‘The review process that takes place after each Games should highlight that and they should not be able to continue.’’
Maister said if golf fronted on its Olympic return without a host of marquee players the IOC would be obligated to assess its status. ‘‘There is a regular review after every Games and a lot of factors are considered, including eligibility and the presence of the top players . . . let’s assume it doesn’t happen in Rio, in my view that should be very substantial grounds for reviewing their place on the programme, and I’d go further than that and say that if that’s the case, they should not be on the programme.’’
Maister said he expected his IOC colleagues to send a clear message should the world’s top golfers stay away en masse.
‘‘The Olympic movement likes to think every sport is there because it is the true global multisport event on the planet.
‘‘But once they’ve got in they’ve got to deliver, and putting up some second or third-rate players is so far from the Olympic ideal or the expectation of the Olympic movement, I think it’s appalling.’’
But Maister, a gold medallist with the 1976 New Zealand men’s hockey team in Montreal, would not go as far as to question basketball’s presence after the NBA’s two premier players, LeBron James and Steph Curry, both withdrew from Team USA after their exhausting seasons.
‘‘In the world of pro sports today accommodation and allowances need to be made.
‘‘For example, those basketball guys have had one hell of a GETTY IMAGES season, and it’s a long season, and the timing of the Olympic Games for them doesn’t sit logically.’’
He was not asked about the IOC’s continued soft stance on football which for the men is essentially an under-age tournament, with the sport’s top stars almost exclusively staying away.
But the long-time Olympic official was more emphatic when it came to the major challenge facing the Games from systematic drug-cheating going on around the globe. He totally backed athletics’ ban on the Russians, which now extends through Rio.
‘‘In terms of the drug situation in the world today it is totally alarming,’’ Maister told Newstalk.
‘‘We’re not talking about the odd failed drug-test, we’re talking allegedly about institutionalised corruption that has supposedly happened in Russia, with samples being replaced with other samples.
‘‘That’s not just a failed drug test, that’s way, way bigger, and it seems as the IOC and Wada [the World Anti-Doping Agency] are getting more and more agitated and investing more and more money, they’re finding more and more things and that has to be hugely concerning.’’
To that end Maister backed the IOC’s continued vigilance, which sees the Kenyans now coming under the spotlight over their lack of appropriate testing procedures, and, most recently, Wada suspending the Rio laboratory that was set to handle drug-testing at the Games.
‘‘If a lab doesn’t measure up, if a country is deemed to be not complying or deliberately obstructing or interfering, they must be removed.’’
Any sport that cannot deliver its best athletes in my view should not be there.’ NZ IOC MEMBER BARRY MAISTER