IOC Member: No Golf If It Can't Deliver Top Players

Let's reluctantly look past the part where his organization chose Rio over, say, Chicago, putting the entire credibility of the Olympic Games on the line. Especially after Friday's buried lede: the Rio Olympic drug lab has just been suspended by WADA six weeks ahead of the Games.

Duncan Mackay reports that IOC member Barry Maister feels golf should lose its place if it can't guarantee the participation of top players.

"I think it is appalling," Maister, winner of an Olympic gold medal in hockey at Montreal 1976, told New Zealand radio station Newstalk ZB.

"I don't like it and I don't think the sport should be allowed to continue in the Games under that scenario.
"Once they've got in, they have got to deliver.

"Just getting in with your name, and then putting up some second or third rate players, is so far from the Olympic ideal or the expectation of the Olympic Movement."

"The Olympics is about the best, and they pledged the best.

"Quite frankly, any sport that cannot deliver its best athletes, in my view, should not be there."

Any IOC board that can't deliver high expectations for a safe Games may also want to look within before speaking out.