IOC unlikely to vote out baseball

It has been 66 years since a sport was eliminated from the Olympic Games, and that is unlikely to change when the International Olympic Committee meets next week in Mexico to consider dropping three at once.

Three months after baseball, softball and modern pentathlon were proposed for exclusion after the Athens in 2004, it looks unlikely that the IOC will vote them out.

A combination of factors – legal and technical complaints about the voting process, a successful lobbying campaign by the endangered federations and a lack of enthusiasm for change – appears to have ensured the sports' Olympic survival, for now, at least.

Meanwhile, a global anti-doping code for international sport would eventually cover all sports – including North American professional leagues like Major League baseball and the National Football League – if governments agree to include it in national laws, Dick Pound, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said.

Pound said governments are being asked to accept the proposed code. A meeting in Moscow of the International Group on Anti-Doping in Sport from 8 to 10 December will discuss a memorandum of understanding that would serve as an interim treaty on adopting the code.Once countries include the code in their laws, the result would be "something that is legally binding".