So the 28-sport cap no longer fits - and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) isn't wearing it any more. From the 2020 Olympics onwards the summer Games will involve no more than 10,500 athletes and 310 events. Let the Speculation Games begin...

The characteristically mischievous/illuminating comment of Canada's senior IOC member Dick Pound in the wake of Monday's Agenda 2020 session in Monaco, in which he hinted that race walking, synchronised swimming and triple jump could be for the high jump as far as future Olympics were concerned, has prompted a fair amount of what my late Uncle Eddie would describe as discombobulation in sporting circles.

Straight off the bat - and while on that subject, of course, baseball and softball now fancy their chances of getting onto the roster at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, where their sports are hugely popular - Lord Sebastian Coe - whose own cap now lies in the ring for the International Association of Athletics Federations Presidency - responded to Pound's comment by saying that triple jump was "a sacrosanct sport in track and field".

Senior IOC member Dick Pound has stirred speculation over which Olympic events might be for the high jump - or the triple jump - in future years ©Getty Images

Coe also defended race-walking but conceded there will now be pressure on athletics, as well as other major Olympic sports such as swimming and gymnastics, to trim down their own programmes to accommodate a range of potentially groovy new attractions.

"There are roughly 10,500 athletes in an Olympics and we take roughly 2,200 - a fifth of all competitors and 47 different disciplines. Does that mean track and field needs to be vigilant about protecting its events then the answer is almost certainly, 'Yes it will'" Coe added.

Meanwhile the reverberations of the potential Olympic shift are apparent on Twitter.

Katharine Merry, Britain's 400 metres Olympic bronze medallist at Sydney 2000, tweeted:  "heard several things 2day that have made me go 'u are kidding me?' inc the crazy IOC idea to potentially remove athletic Olympic events!"

Christian Taylor, the Olympic triple jump champion from the United States who is the very model of a role model athlete, tweeted: "I'm hearing rumors that the Triple Jump may be taken out of the Olympics by 2020.Is there any truth to this? @JDE66 @MikeConleySr @iocmedia"
Taylor's mind was put at rest by no less a figure than the Briton who won world and Olympic triple jump titles and still holds the world record of 18.29 metres, Jonathan Edwards.

"it was an off the cuff comment by someone who should no better! I wouldn't worry pal. Hope alls well" tweeted Edwards, to which Taylor replied: "wow. Thank you for that, sir.my heart dropped when I saw this".

Are we seriously supposing that the Olympic titles won by Edwards and Taylor, in 2000 and 2012 respectively, will take their place in the annals along other discontinued Olympic events such as the standing high jump or the 56-pound weight throw?


Christian Taylor, the London 2012 triple jump champion, tweeted that his "heart dropped" when he saw reports that his event might be dropped from future Games but was later reassured by world record holder and Sydney 2000 gold medallist Jonathan Edwards
©Getty Images

Perhaps not. But perhaps - if a report in the Australian newspaper The Age is to be believed, it might be the 10,000m that joins the discontinued list. Or the 200m.

Michael Gleeson's piece quotes the experienced athletics administrator Brian Roe, a senior international technical official at the Olympics and IAAF World Championships, who comments: "There was a gathering over dinner in Europe recently of senior athletics people who are very significant in influencing policy matters and I was present. The IOC clearly has a view to reduce the number of those competing in athletics events and options were raised for how to do that and clearly there was a strong view that the 10,000, 200, one race walk and shot put were the most at risk. The triple jump was the least of those five."

So what are the options for the triple jump? Perhaps it could follow the lead set by modern pentathlon by transforming itself into the double jump...

Earlier this year I wrote a spoof piece for the insidethegames magazine produced for the SportAccord Convention in Belek, Turkey, envisaging the state of the Olympics 30 years hence.

Two years after the 2042 Doha Winter Games, at which the hosts made good on their promise to create endless supplies of snow for their man-made courses despite temperatures rising to 30 degrees or more in the late afternoon, organisers of the 2044 Murmansk Summer Games have vowed to nullify sub-zero temperatures with a multi-million rouble system of gas-fired central heating units supplied and co-ordinated by sponsors Gazprom - and modern pentathlon is undergoing its latest reincarnation to remain within the Olympic fold.

Stock car racing - a future element for modern pentathlon to consider? ©Getty Images

"The sport's ruling body has successfully resisted a series of calls to replace its equestrian element with quad biking, stock car racing or Grand Theft Auto. But the Union International de Pentathlon Moderne has regretfully had to condense its events still further in order to satisfy the demands of a worldwide TV audience with ever-decreasing levels of concentration.