Dubai: Players on the sidelines of the Professional Squash Association (PSA) World Series Finals at Dubai Opera this week are hoping the ‘Dubai effect’ will help push the agenda to get their sport into the Olympics.
Squash narrowly missed out to golf and rugby sevens when it came to adding new sports to the 2016 Olympics in Rio, and it will again miss out to wrestling at Tokyo 2020.
The hope now is that squash will be included in time for the 2024 Olympics, and players believe that getting their sport included in Dubai’s impressive roster of events might help with International Olympic Committee (IOC) acceptance — especially given Dubai’s reputation and sway as a global sports hub.
“Dubai hosts so many great sporting events so for squash to be added to that list is really good,” said England’s World No.9 Alison Waters, who has previously been critical of the Olympic snub.
“Hopefully they [Dubai] can keep pushing their end and we can keep pushing our end and we can get that dream that everyone wants.
“The more we can play in iconic venues like this, just shows how accessible and easy it is to put a court up wherever you want,” she said of Dubai Opera.
“I think that plays into our [hands] and yes, the more people supporting us and spreading the word about how great a sport it is will definitely give us a good chance.”
Squash has previously been turned down by the IOC because they said it wasn’t easy to watch on TV. But as participants burn more calories playing squash than any other sport — roughly just over a 1,000 calories per hour — there’s definitely no questioning the calibre of athlete it produces.
“I don’t know the politics behind it all but I know everyone in squash is working hard towards the goal of getting the sport in the Olympics.
“It’s become easier to watch with live streaming, we are also now live on BT Sport and EuroSport, so we are now in a good place to go to the IOC and say ‘look at our sport’. Maybe before we weren’t in as good a position but we are still growing and all we can do is our best, if they see that, then great, if not we will carry on and we still have an amazing tour and tournaments like this, so we will be strong without it.”
Men’s world champion and World No.2 Karim Abdul Jawad of Egypt agreed: “I’m shocked that squash isn’t already part of the Olympics because I don’t think we are missing anything, it’s great. We are really close to becoming an Olympic sport and I hope it happens soon because it would be great for both squash and the Olympics.”
Women’s world champion and World No.1 Nour Al Sherbini of Egypt added: “It leaves me angry and frustrated to know that squash is not already in the Olympics because it really deserves to be, and all its athletes deserve a shot at gold. I hope I’m still playing by the time it gets in. I don’t know what the problem is because it’s a very easy sport, we only need one court and 16 players, we are not even asking for 32.”
