East London is filled with reminders of when the London Olympics came to town in 2012.
The SportsDock on the Docklands campus was used by team U.S.A in preparation before the games and the Olympic park sits proudly in the heart of East London.
This time next year the Olympics in Tokyo will be just months away and many UEL athletes harbour aspirations of competing in Japan.
Snubbed Sport
One sport that will not be represented in Tokyo is squash as it has once again been snubbed in its bid to become an Olympic sport.
Rising East spoke to the former world number five Fiona Geaves to discuss squash’s Olympic bids and how the sport is developing.
Geaves won two gold medals at the 2002 Commonwealth games in Manchester but she cannot fathom why squash has not been included in the Olympics yet:
“I just don’t understand why we’re only racket sport were that’s not been in.
“I’ve never actually seen or read from the IOC anything that really gives you a proper understanding as to why we haven’t been accepted.”
Reasons
She cited some of the reasons that the IOC have given as to why squash has been omitted:
“The stipulations that they asked for quite a few years ago was that squash was not played in enough countries. Well it is.”
“They also said that it’s difficult to play and set it up at the Olympics. But that’s not true because they can use a glass court and they can put that anywhere.”
Raising Profile
Squash has really stepped up their marketing campaign in recent years to try and put themselves on the global sporting map, which Geaves echoed:
“The marketing that they have done for the last two bids has been sensational.
“They’ve done a lot more stuff on social media, a lot of good videos. The last one I saw before we got the news that squash wasn’t in looked really professional.”
Celebrity Endorsement
She also showed appreciation for other sports helping squash’s cause:
“You’ve even got sporting heroes getting on the bandwagon, like Roger Federer before the previous Olympics, so it’s nice that other sports are actually trying to get involved and help squash.”
But Geaves also stated that their good marketing may have come at the wrong time:
Missed Opportunity?
“I think years ago, when we probably might have had a better chance to get in, we probably as a sport didn’t do a good enough job of selling it, but now they’re selling it brilliantly.”
Squash has repeatedly banged at the door of IOC with no reward as of yet and it’s omission baffles many across the squash community but Geaves is still holding out hope for the sport to make it in one day:
“I obviously want to say yes (they can make it in) and if squash keep plugging away like they are there is always a chance.”
