Five traditional sports may face axe under IOC's Games modernization plan

As the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is determined to modernize the Games, five traditional sports have come under pressure for athletes numbers and events.

IOC approved radical proposals to bring a change to the Games during a meeting in Monaco this week. The busy athletics programme, the one with the most historic link to the Games, is under pressure to be tightened to allow other sports to be added to the Olympics schedule.

A high ranking Australian official has revealed that the five events regarded most at risk under in an athletics shake-up are, in order: the 10,000-metre, one of the men's race walks, most likely the 20 kilometre event, the 200-metre, shot put and triple jump, Stuff.co.nz reported.

Shot put won't be missing in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and 2020 in Tokyo as the sports for these events have already been decided. But long-term the discipline's future appears decidedly shaky.

Respected Australian athletics administrator Brian Roe, a senior international technical official at the Olympics and world championships, said that he had been at a meeting of influential thinkers in the sport when the options were put and those five events were all presented as the most obvious choices if there were to be changes.

The thinking on the shot put is that while it is a traditional event it doesn't capture the public's imagination. But rival field throwing event discus would remain.

Roe said that the IOC clearly has a view to reduce the number of those competing in athletics events and options were raised for how to do that and clearly there was a strong view that the 10,000, 200, one race walk and shot put were the most at risk, adding that the triple jump was the least of those five.

Roe said the triple jump was considered safer than the other events because of its geographical appeal.