Singapore: London will stage a reduced Olympic Games in 2012 after baseball and softball were wiped from the programme in a controversial vote on Friday.

London’s showpiece will now feature 26 sports rather than 28 after IOC members rejected proposals to replace the axed sports with two from rugby sevens, golf, squash, karate and roller sports.

Baseball and softball failed to win a majority of votes in a ballot of members at the IOC Session at the Raffles complex and became the first sports to be cut from the Games since polo in 1936.

In a farcical display of bureaucracy, IOC members selected squash and karate, then overwhelmingly rejected their bids to join the Olympic programme. (Reuters)