BODYBUILDING DENIED OLYMPIC RECOGNITION
On Wednesday, September 19th, the International Olympic Committee,
meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, denied official recognition to the International
Federation of Bodybuilders. A sport can be given official recognition without
being included in the Olympic Games, but no sport can be considered for
inclusion in the games without official recognition. This means bodybuilding
will not be a part of the 2004 Games and most likely will not be included
in the 2008 Olympics either.
"One reason for this rejection," says veteran sports photographer Tony Duffy, who has been shooting the Olympics since 1968, "may well be that the IOC is shying away from sports which they feel are judged too much on a subjective basis. When you are actually involved in bodybuilding, you quickly learn that there are objective standards of physical development that allow a fairly clear consensus on the part of the judges, at least for the most part, but I doubt the members of the IOC are really aware of this fact."
Added to the subjectivity question, there is also the issue of drug use. Fairly or unfairly, bodybuilding is identified in the minds of the public and the IOC alike as being a drug-involved sport. And since the IFBB has no full time public relations office to counter the continuing negative publicity involving bodybuilding, the public generally only gets to hear one side of the story.
What about the possibility of a negative view of female bodybuilding on the part of some IOC members influencing their decision? "Well, nowadays you can't get a men's sport into the Olympics and not include the women's version of that sport as well," Tony Duffy explains." I'm sure the IOC members have seen magazines like Muscle & Fitness and Flex and are fully aware of female bodybuilding. I can't say how they feel about it exactly, but when they see that the bodybuilding magazines themselves don't support women's bodybuilding it would be difficult to expect the IOC itself to have a very high opinion of female physique competition. So the treatment the women are receving in the magazines certainly isn't benefitting the IFBB's efforts at achieving Olympic recognition."