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The International Rugby Board is hoping its Rugby World Cup Sevens, starting in Dubai on Thursday, will help steer the sport back into the Olympic Games programme later in the year.

In a new purpose-built stadium, the 'Sevens', crowds of 50,000 are expected for the three-day men's and women's competition, with IRB officials saying there was no better promotion for their sport's Olympic re-inclusion after 85 years.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will decide in October whether to introduce up to two new sports for the 2016 Games with rugby, karate, roller sports, squash, golf, baseball and softball fighting to get in.

Sevens is a faster version of rugby union with teams fielding seven players instead of 15 and matches lasting 14 minutes, seven each way.

"What is very important about rugby ... is its universality and that is a very good image. We hope that will be a positive for the Olympic campaign," IRB chairman Bernard Lapasset said in a statement.

"Rugby is a modern sport. It is very good for the young fan. It is very fast, quick, sharp, short, dynamic. That is very important in terms of the value we can bring to the Olympics," he said.

The IOC is eager to refresh its Olympic programme and attract a younger audience as the average age of viewers of the Games has been rising in recent years.

Rugby has not featured in the Olympics since the Paris 1924 Games.

"If sevens was given Olympic status the sport would rocket, it would be on a completely different level," England Sevens head coach Ben Ryan said in Dubai.

Baseball and softball have been thrown out of the 2012 Olympics, reducing the total number of sports at the London Games to 26.

The IOC has said that would also be the minimum number of sports on the 2016 Olympic program with the possibility of adding as few as none and as many as two.

The core sports for the 2020 Games will be further reduced to 25, allowing for a maximum of three sports to come in or be dropped to give the program a greater amount of flexibility and the Olympics a greater youth appeal.

(Source: Reuters)