Alan Thatcher @ 360

About the Author: Alan Thatcher is a journalist, event promoter and TV commentator. Alan joins Squash360.com as Contributing Editor. Come back each Monday as Alan offers his unique insight into the sport. In the weeks and months ahead Alan will interview key figures in the game and share plenty of stories from down the years.

A DEFINING MOMENT FOR SQUASH AS WE JUMP THROUGH HOOPS TO GET INTO THE OLYMPICS

Well, the Olympic Games are in full swing in Beijing and once again squash is not invited to the party.

It will be the same in 2012, when the Olympics return to London. How fitting it would have been for squash to make its debut in the city where the sport was invented, at Harrow School, in Victorian days.

However, the battle is now on for squash to be accepted as an Olympic sport in 2016 as the World Squash Federation continues its lobbying procedures. The host city of the 2016 Games will be announced in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009.

The bidding cities for 2016 are Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. Of the four, Chicago and Madrid would appear to offer the best options for squash. Chicago has staged several major PSA events in recent years and, after a gap year because of sponsorship difficulties, a new event, the Sweet Home Chicago Open, makes its first appearance in September, with the glass court staged in a spectacular city centre location.

The selection of stunning venues is a major plus factor for squash, and Madrid offered a royal place to showcase the Women's World Open last year. Significantly, the event was hosted by the Madrid 2016 Olympic Games bid team to demonstrate their ability to stage major international events.

One fascinating element of the tournament was the fact that Spanish TV shot the event in high definition. The WSF kindly asked me to commentate on the highlights programme and the quality of some of the filming was mind-blowing.

If you haven't seen it, try to get a copy from the WSF offices. The super slow-motion replay captured one of the Grinham sisters making a huge lunge for the ball and, to me, commentating in a studio in London and watching the drama unfold, on a huge screen in front of me, it seemed like a defining moment for the televising of our sport.

Our leading athletes need to be lightning fast, have incredible reflexes and be able to sustain a phenomenal physical workrate to succeed at the highest level. However, despite this impressive array of elements, which makes our sport so compelling and exciting to watch in the flesh, television has failed to capture the very essence of the sport.

In the past, an oft-repeated criticism of televised squash is that it makes the game look too easy and fails to show how hard the players are working.

However, by slowing down the movement, and watching an incident unfold, frame by tantalising frame, you could appreciate the incredible stretching, twisting and turning required to retrieve the ball. It was truly, truly amazing.

There is a staggering irony here. While squash remains outside the Olympic fraternity, the costs of producing this ground-breaking TV coverage were absorbed by a proud Spanish city keen to outdo the achievements of the 1992 Games held in Barcelona.

The footballing rivalries of the mighty Real Madrid and Barcelona are a microcosm of the bitter political, cultural and regional differences that dominate Spanish history. But let's not dwell on that here.

At current rates, the production costs of televising squash in HD are at least £25,000 (50,000 USD) a day. I know because that's the figure I was quoted by a major sports marketing company's TV division for a joint partnership in creating a new event especially for television.

Finding that kind of money is a tough challenge for squash.

The Madrid 2016 team clearly enjoy the solid support of their national broadcasters. How wonderful it would be for squash to experience that level of backing, with national TV stations willingly underwriting such superb coverage.

Currently, Malaysia's broadcasters are the only ones to translate their nation's love affair with Nicol David into regular TV coverage.

We can only hope that if squash succeeds in gaining a place in the Olympics then increased TV exposure will follow.

By being an Olympic sport, our national federations will receive increased government funding to assist the process and help to raise the profile of the sport.

Let's wish the WSF every success in their endeavours. Our leading squash players would view an Olympic medal as the ultimate highlight of their careers.

I can't see that view being shared by multi-millionaire golfers, who are also bidding for a place in the Olympics, or by the cosseted tennis players who are already there.

One thing's for sure: an Olympic squash event would not be susceptible to the Beijing smog.

Let's hope those IOC delegates voting in Copenhagen next year have a clear view of squash's qualities. I hope they enjoyed the video from Spain.