Bowling can’t pin down spot among Olympic events

Friday, July 19, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Call it the curse of Ralph Kramden and Fred Flintstone. They're to blame for bowling's exclusion from the Olympics.

That's what one International Olympic Committee official said this week amid flying pins at Olympic Village, where the International Bowling Federation sponsored an exhibition in an attempt to impress the IOC into making theirs an official Olympic sport.

If image is everything, bowling's is beer, smoke and a couple of bloated caricatures -- the antithesis of athletic grace (although it must be said that Mr. Flintstone was mighty light on his feet).

Bill Vint, editor of Bowling magazine, the official mouthpiece of the American Bowling Congress, says the IBF has made its case for Olympic status for at least 20 years.

"Bowling is trying very hard to obtain Olympic medal status, and hasn't got it done yet," he says. "The goal is to try to get into the Sydney (Australia) Games in 2000."

But because the IOC is going through a major revamping, making decisions on event status, Vint says it hasn't decided on bowling.

"All I know is bowling is doing everything to abide by every request the IOC has made."

And, he says, it conforms to every specification the Olympic governing body requires in a sport: "Equal opportunity for men and women, a highly team-oriented sport and it has mass appeal to the general public around the world."

Forty-six percent of the elite players are women, something IOC member Steve James says the IOC is looking for in new sports.

"It's a real sport," pleaded Mexican bowling champion Celia Flores.

Her training day begins with an hour of running followed by two or three hours in the gym, she says. She also gets in two hours of bowling despite working a full-time job.

"That's for six days a week," Flores says.

Sid Allen, a Canadian who has coached the national bowling team of Malaysia for six years, says bowling is one of the first sports.

"If you go back to the beginning of time, when man tried to entertain himself, he first tried to lift something, and that was a sport right there," he says, alluding to Messrs. Flintstone and Rubble. "Then he picked something up and tried to throw it as far as he could."

Not long after that, Allen adds, "He stood something up and rolled something to knock it down."

But ask IOC committee members about bowling's chance of attaining Olympic status and they'll say don't hold your breath.

"They're on the radar screen" as a recognized sport, was all Dick Pound would say.