GENEVA - SEVEN sports fighting for inclusion in the 2016 Summer Games will present their cases on Friday to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The leaders of baseball, softball, golf, karate, roller sports, rugby and squash will meet the 16-member programme commission, which will deliver an influential report to the IOC's top decision-making body before next year's vote.

Each sport has a one-hour slot, with baseball making the first pitch in the closed-door presentations in Lausanne, Switzerland.

International Baseball Federation (IBAF) president Harvey Schiller said on Thursday it was a unique opportunity to try to persuade the panel to reinstate the sport after being dropped for the 2012 Olympics in London.

He said: 'We want to do our best to tell the story of baseball.'

Friday's sessions are a key stage in a process that will culminate when more than 100 IOC members vote in Copenhagen, Denmark, next October.

The IOC has set a limit of 28 sports at the 2016 Olympics, leaving two available slots for the seven sports to compete over.

Baseball and softball were voted off the 2012 programme in Singapore three years ago, and the other five failed to gather enough support for inclusion in London.

To win reinstatement for 2016, baseball must show the IOC it can deliver major league players to an Olympic tournament being played in the second half of the regular season. Detroit Tigers centre fielder Curtis Granderson will speak as part of the IBAF's maximum six-person delegation.

'We wanted to bring a player that is a star now and also a star of the future,' Mr Schiller said. 'Curtis is young enough to be able to participate eight years from now.'

Softball, a women's sport in the Olympics, made its debut at the 1996 Atlanta Games and was won three times by the United States before the Americans were beaten by Japan in the gold medal match in Beijing.

The International Softball Federation (ISF) has distanced itself from baseball in trying to win back its place, which was lost by a single vote in 2005. ISF president Don Porter will be joined at the IOC by Olympic players Saskia Kosterink of the Netherlands and Venezuela's Rubilena Rojas.

Golf, which was last played at the Olympics in 1904, proposes to return with men's and women's tournaments.

Its case is being presented by the International Golf Federation, led by PGA executive Ty Votaw and Mr Peter Dawson of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, Scotland.

The World Karate Federation, with 180 national federations, hopes the sport's global appeal will be attractive to the IOC. It proposes to award 10 gold medals in five classes for each of the men's and women's competitions.

The International Federation for Roller Sports proposes road races on city streets for men and women, but not rink hockey or skateboarding.

Rugby fell from the Olympic programme in 1924 and wants to come back with the seven-a-side, shorter version of the game for men and women, rather than the more established 15-a-side competition.

Mr Bernard Lapasset, president of the International Rugby Board, will lead a delegation stressing that the sport gives smaller nations such as Fiji and Samoa a realistic chance to win medals.

The World Squash Federation hopes that television-friendly, glass-enclosed courts can counter the sport's reputation as one that struggles to translate the speed of play to viewers.

Its delegation includes IOC member Prince Tunku Imran of Malaysia and former world champions Jahangir Khan of Pakistan and Sarah Fitzgerald of Australia.

The programme commission is chaired by Italian Franco Carraro, one of eight IOC members on the panel which will question the delegations before presenting a report to the executive board.

The board meets next June to make recommendations to the full IOC membership. A simple majority is needed for a sport to be voted onto the programme.

The IOC will also select the 2016 host city during the Copenhagen session, with Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro the four candidates. -- AP