Don’t squash the Olympic dream of this noble sport

ThE RAC Club in Pall Mall is not the sort of venue one usually attends in search of elite competition. Well-meaning amateurs, certainly. Lovely facilities, obviously. Plenty of middle-aged white guys, definitely. The extremes of fitness and fist-pumping, sweat-pouring, thrilling intensity associated with sport played at its highest level? Not so much.

Yet on Tuesday evening, several hundred enthusiastic members crowded into the gallery around the squash courts at one of London’s most traditional private clubs to watch Egyptian world champion Mohamed Elshorbagy play Paul Coll of New Zealand, currently ranked 11 in the world.

This is the Premier Squash League, a 10- club competition regarded as the most prestigious of its kind; and it’s very, very good.

I won’t lie. I was there because my friend runs the team currently top of the PSL South, Tradition at The Royal Automobile Club. But I was also there because squash keeps trying, and failing, to be recognised as an Olympic sport and that has never seemed right. The argument runs that it is a difficult watch, hard to capture on television. I wanted to see for myself.

The argument is wrong. Live squash is brilliant. Enthralling, exhilarating and estimable, given what it takes out of the players. Television cameras are just an electronic set of eyes. Well, everyone in that room had eyes and what we saw raised the roof in what is, typically, a rather staid environment.

Squash struck out a third time as an Olympic sport for Tokyo in 2020. Baseball/softball, karate, sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding are all now included but squash went the way of wushu — no, me neither — 10-pin bowling and roller-skating. It is a travesty, really. Surely the soul of climbing resides outdoors? Skateboarders, like snow-boarders, compete for show, more than medals. That a sport like squash demanding so much of its competitors loses out to what are basically leisure or lifestyle activities, or to golf, snubbed by the best players in the world in 2016, is a dreadful indictment of the IOC’s priorities.

An Olympic gold medal should be the pinnacle for any competing sport. Nicol David of Malaysia, former women’s world No 1 and an eight-time world champion, said she would swap all her titles for a single Olympic gold. Would Rory McIlroy swap his four major titles the same way? We all know the answer to that.

And, yes, a fixture at the RAC Club smacks of elitism, but four of the five teams in the Premier League North come out of universities, and other clubs in Premier League South, such as Bexley and Chichester, reflect humbler origins.

The RAC was the perfect venue for a club called Tradition — named after its sponsors, Compagnie Financiere Tradition — because it is the unofficial home of squash, the way Lord’s is the home of cricket. The RAC clubhouse hosted the first meetings to set up competitive squash; the Squash Rackets Association conducted their business from there after they were formed in 1928. The courts are old school, white walls and wooden floors, not the modern glass-surrounded new-builds, so necessary for spectators and television audiences, but it is plain the players get a kick out of being there.

Even if it’s hot. So incredibly hot, in fact, that by the time Elshorbagy and Coll played the last of the five club matches on Tuesday, there were regular delays while the court was cleaned of sweat.

There is nowhere to put a towel on a squash court, because everywhere is in play. It’s a gladiatorial pit, really. No escape and no quarter. And if a player slips, as happens, he leaves an imprint of moisture that has to be erased: because it’s that hard. What would be called a set in tennis is a game in squash, and Elshorbagy left to change his shirt after every game. It did not matter. Within minutes the new attire was drenched through, too.

There were a lot of good players in action through the night, but

the speed of Elshorbagy’s forehand was exceptional. Yet Coll is renowned as the fittest player on the circuit. In the world of squash that is saying something. It was an outstanding match-up, running to five games, Elshorbagy triumphing 11-8 at the last.

Nobody who saw it would buy the idea that squash could not convert to television. Squash TV, the brainchild of the Professional Squash Association, has exploded that myth, with higher quality cameras, better lit courts and friendlier surrounds to improve the visibility of the ball. AS

A result, a television audience of more than one million watched the men’s singles final at the Commonwealth Games in 2014. And, as far as Olympic action goes, there is always interest once you’ve got a horse in the race. Think curling.

In the end, the IOC has to decide what the Olympics is about: commerce or competition. There is little doubt the new sports that have been successfully adopted are there largely for financial reasons. Golf, surfing, even rugby sevens — there is money to be made.

Yet squash is approachable enough to be the national sport in Egypt, a country whose aver- age income per capita ranks it 127th in the world. What is it about affordability that also finds no appeal with the IOC?

Egypt have six players in the top nine men and critics claim one nation dominates. Yet there are 12 nationalities in the top 25 and six sporting continents are covered: Europe, Africa, South America, Central America, Asia and Oceania. Compare that to golf, where nine countries feature in the top 25 men — including five Americans in the top eight — and nine in the top 25 women, including four Koreans in the top six and 13 of the 25 overall. That’s why squash is getting a raw deal. Just about every negative that is thrown its way can equally be applied to other Olympic sports.

Elitist? Then what of modern pentathlon, a sport designed to replicate the predicament of a 19th-century cavalryman, trapped behind enemy lines? To rejoin his regiment he must win fights by sword and pistol, ride an unfamiliar horse, swim and run. No doubt they talk of little else in Bolton.

As for being difficult for spectators — dressage, shooting, archery anyone? If the speed of squash does not lend itself to shot-byshot commentary, the same could be said of table tennis, a sport in which all but one Olympic gold medal has been won by China since 1992, 23 out of 24.

‘Nobody is quite sure why the sport has suffered repeated failures,’ wrote former world No 1 James Willstrop, after squash’s latest rejection. ‘The Olympics is the biggest sporting event in the world. Of course we want to be there but all we ever do is try to justify ourselves. These athletes, some of the greatest alive, shouldn’t need to do this. This is our sport and it’s getting better all the time. Must we beg?’

He’s right. Squash shouldn’t have to plead for Olympic recognition. If those at the helm of the IOC cannot recognise a great sport, simply presented, we can only make some rather familiar assumptions about their motives. The RAC isn’t the only cosy little club, it seems. BEFORE departing for the World Cup, England will play Costa Rica at Elland Road on a Thursday. Not exactly going out with a bang, are they?