Exclusive: World Bowling Looks to Impress IOC while Boosting Appeal of Sport
August 25, 2014
By Tariq Saleh
World Bowling president Kevin Dornberger believes bowling is the most popular sport which isn’t currently in the Olympics and is working on making the sport more attractive to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Speaking exclusively to iSportconnect Dornberger said he has had regular conversations with the IOC and is hoping to improve the appeal of the sport to spectators.
“I believe we’re the most popular sport, cough recreational sport, troche in the world that’s not in the Olympics,” he said.
“I have regular conversations with the IOC sports department, so we’re working and they’re right, I cannot use what their thoughts are, but we’re working on making our events more attractive for spectators and outside media and I think if we do that then we will become more attractive to the IOC and other such entities.”
Dornberger is also really keen for the sport to expand its global appeal into Asia and Europe where bowling may not be so popular.
He said: “I’m flying to Yanjing in China where we’ll spend four days talking to the Chinese federation about trying to strengthen their programme so that they and the Chinese government become interested in bowling, because if we do get to the day when the IOC is looking at it and we get to the day when there’s some voting involved, I’ll ideally love for China to look favourably on our sport.”
“Russia and India are other obvious targets.”
