Frank van Loon
WSF Vice President
The presence of the sport’s leading players and key figureheads in Manchester for the World Championships provided the perfect opportunity for the WSF to highlight details of its all-important Olympic bid.
World number ones Amr Shabana and Nicol David led a star-studded group of players who attended a “Countdown to Copenhagen” reception in the city—joining media and WSF delegates from around the world to hear our President, Jahangir Khan, outline the sport’s Olympic credentials and the timetable of the bid process over the following 12 months.
One of the strongest points in our favor for becoming an Olympic sport is that the Squash competition would, without any doubt, attract all the sport’s top players. Furthermore, a Squash gold medal would immediately become the sport’s ultimate goal.
We produced a striking poster (see photo to left), featuring images of our top players under a headline “An Olympic Gold Medal Would Be The Ultimate Prize In Squash.”
It was a statement immediately endorsed by Amr and Nicol, who put their signatures on the poster—which was later further signed by all the players competing in the event.
Later in the week, postcards featuring the same message were individually sent to IOC members around the world—personally signed by either Amr Shabana, Nicol David, James Willstrop or Rachael Grinham.
We are blessed with elite players who are incredibly generous with their time for such important initiatives. It is truly wonderful that everybody in the sport is pulling together in this determined bid to get our Olympic message across.
