Serevi adds his weight

Waisale Serevi, the Fijian considered the greatest rugby sevens player of all-time, yesterday backed the campaign to reinstate sevens as an Olympic sport.

Fiji's Seremaia Burotu celebrates winning the Hong Kong Sevens on Sunday. His former coach, Waisale Serevi, is backing the campaign to reinstate the event in the Olympics, starting in 2016.

QUEENSTOWN // Waisale Serevi, the Fijian considered the greatest rugby sevens player of all-time, yesterday threw his weight behind the campaign to reinstate the shortened form of the game as an Olympic sport. Rugby union is one of seven sports seeking to be added to the Olympic programme for the 2016 summer Games.

Only two will be nominated to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for inclusion, with a vote taken in October. Serevi, the player-coach of the Fiji side between 2005 and 2007, told members at the Oceania National Olympic Committee (ONOC) in Queenstown, New Zealand that the inclusion of sevens in the 2016 Olympics would increase the chances for small countries to win medals. "Small nations such as Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Kenya, Argentina and New Zealand would be in with a chance," he said.

Serevi's speech earned nods and smiles of approval from the members of the Pacific island nations while New Zealand, the venue for the summit, is one of the game's heartlands and will host the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Rugby was last played at the Olympics in Paris in 1924 and the International Rugby Board's representative Kit McConnell said it was ready for reinclusion. He said rugby was now played in 116 nations by three million people, with men and women playing at international level.

IOC president Jacques Rogge, who played international rugby for Belgium, said that the process to decide between them would be fair, open and transparent. "It will be based on quality not subjective elements," he said. Rogge, former Olympic sailor, said he loved playing rugby but the sport would not get any special treatment in voting. Representatives of baseball, soft ball, karate and squash also gave brief presentations in Queenstown, where the four candidate cities to host the 2016 Olympics also pitched their bids to members.

Baseball and softball were contested at the Beijing Olympics last August, but were voted off the programme for the London 2012 Olympics at the same meetings in Singapore where the British capital was selected as host city. Oceania karate representative Makarita Lenoa said the World Karate Federation was disappointed to miss out on selection for the 2012 Olympics. Judo and Taekwondo are on the programme, along with boxing. Karate was ruled out because there were two existing martial arts represented at the games.

"This is not the modern way. If Karate is accepted into the Olympic programme and IOC members consider three martial arts are too much then this can be changed," said Lenoa. "Only the strongest in the programme should be kept," she said, adding that Karate was the world's most popular martial art." [e-mail]