Tag: Thomas Bach
LANE ONE: Olympic budget pressures mean nothing to those who aren’t paying for...
Spending someone else’s money is pretty easy. The Olympic Movement has been great at it for decades. The International Olympic Committee, especially under the administration of President Thomas Bach (GER), has found that host cities have gotten tired of the continuous bleating from it, from the International Federations and the National Olympic Committees, and has […]
HEARD AFTER HALFTIME: WADA chief Reedie says he is “unsure” of winning against...
News, views and noise from the non-stop, worldwide circus of Olympic sport: ● Doping ● Britain’s Craig Reedie is the elected head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the lead actor in the world’s fight against doping in sport. In an interview with the SportAccord conference newsletter, The Daily, he noted: “I am unsure whether sport […]
THE BIG PICTURE: Bach signals AIBA’s days may be numbered
The International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board will meet on 22 May in Lausanne to determine whether the International Boxing Association – known by its French acronym, AIBA – should operate the Olympic Boxing tournament in Tokyo in 2020. The IOC’s President, Thomas Bach (GER), made his clearest statements yet that indicate his organization does not […]
LANE ONE: With just more than a year to go, how ready Tokyo...
In remarks to the Australian Olympic Committee’s Annual General Assembly last Saturday, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach of Germany told the delegates: “With the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 on the horizon, the athletes will have so much to look forward to. As John can confirm, the preparations and the level of organisation of our […]
HEARD AFTER HALFTIME: Raelene Boyle rightly calls on the IOC to redress East...
News, views and noise from the non-stop, worldwide circus of Olympic sport: ● Doping ● The Australian Olympic Committee’s Annual General Meeting drew a lot of attention over the weekend, with International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach visiting and speaking to the assembly. The delegates – and Bach – also heard from Raelene Boyle, now […]
LANE ONE: “Show me the money” was the first order of business at...
The International Olympic Committee assembled about 350 current and former athletes from 185 countries at the SwissTech Convention Center in Lausanne (SUI) for the ninth International Athlete Forum over the weekend and felt it necessary to talk money before everything else. The conference had sessions on anti-doping, athlete career transition, mental health and a lot […]
LANE ONE: Thomas Bach is changing the IOC into something totally new, but...
Meetings of the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board draw quite a bit of media attention, even though there is often not a single athlete in attendance. There are some former athletes, like gold-medal fencer Thomas Bach (GER), the IOC President since 2013, and American rowing bronze medalist Anita DeFrantz, who are members of the Executive […]
LANE ONE: The strange story of the International Boxing Association gets even stranger
As had been expected, the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board took no action concerning the International Boxing Association (AIBA) on the final day of its meetings in Lausanne (SUI) on Thursday. At the news briefing following, IOC spokesman Christian Klaue (GER) stated: “We also heard today the intermediate report of the Inquiry Committee on the […]
LANE ONE: Thomas Bach’s IOC wants “to get the couch potatoes off the...
The focus of the Olympic Movement has changed. It was, until very recently, to stage the greatest sports spectacle in the world. But in a 54-minute news conference following the second day of International Olympic Committee Executive Board meetings, IOC chief Thomas Bach clearly signaled that the technical organization of the Games will more and […]
LANE ONE: Crucial IOC Executive Board meeting this week in Switzerland could impact...
We’re going to have some interesting days starting on Tuesday as the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board meets in Lausanne (SUI). A series of issues which have been simmering for months might come to a boil … or maybe not. But there is a lot of interest in what the IOC is going to do […]
LANE ONE: A call to eliminate guns from the Games, but that doesn’t...
The highly-respected Alan Abrahamson, one of the best commentators on Olympic sport, wrote on his 3WireSports site last Saturday that: “The Games and the values for which the Olympics purport to be about — excellence, friendship, respect and, by extension, tolerance — are the very thing that stand in marked contrast to an abhorrent shooting […]
LANE ONE: Agenda 2020 and the future of Baseball, Softball and other sports...
The 21 February announcement that Skateboarding, Sport Climbing, Surfing and Breakdancing were the requested additions to the program of the 2024 Olympic Games by the Paris organizing committee left sports such as Baseball, Softball, Billiards, Chess, Karate and Squash out of the Games. And they are not happy about it. The World Karate Federation has […]
LANE ONE: Think politics and sports don’t mix? They mix, but pretty badly...
During his 20-year term as the head of the International Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage often insisted that “sports and politics don’t mix.” He found out, to his horror and that of the entire world, that they do mix and can mix very badly, as Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 members of the Israeli Olympic delegation at […]
LANE ONE: Burger King is not an Olympic sponsor, but it has the...
This is a busy time for the leadership and staff of the International Olympic Committee, even though there is no Olympic Games – winter or summer – in 2019. The IOC and especially the Executive Board have a long list of issues to be dealt with, including the continuing saga of Russia and its standing […]
LANE ONE: Appreciating another legacy of the 1984 Olympic Games: David Simon
The modern Olympic Movement was dramatically changed with the staging of the Games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad in Los Angeles in 1984. The private financing, the use of existing facilities and thousands of volunteers are well remembered, along with many technical innovations that continue in use today. What is a little less appreciated is the […]
LANE ONE: Is the IOC setting the stage for a serious review of...
When the International Olympic Committee issues one of its periodic statements on how it is adapting the Olympic Games to modern times, it’s hard to know whether to take it seriously. Is this a preview of real change coming to the Games? Or another self-congratulatory, self-serving statement that, in actuality, means little? But as long […]
LANE ONE: Ready for chaos? This might be the year for it in...
If you thought 2018 was a rough year for the Olympic Movement, in board rooms, courtrooms and the halls of the U.S. Congress, get your seat belts fastened for an even rockier ride in 2019. At the start of the year, there are already more than a handful of issues set to explode (or implode, […]
LANE ONE: The top Olympic-sport stories of 2018, part II: Nassar overshadows all
As 2018 fades away, what were the top stories of the year in the Olympic Movement, both in the U.S. and worldwide? We found a mix of on-field heroics and off-field tumult. We shared no. 10-6 in our last issue, so here are the top five stories of the year, counting down from no. 5 […]
LANE ONE: The top Olympic-sport stories of 2018, part I: Thrills, yes, but...
As the calendar runs out on 2018, it’s worth looking back at the stories that were the most compelling, the most exciting and the most gut-wrenching over the course of the year. We’ve identified our top 10 stories of the year in Olympic sport, with today’s edition profiling nos. 10-6: 10. Cycling: Britain sweeps the […]
THE BIG PICTURE: IOC’s bad pun in its commitment to sustainability release underlines...
The International Olympic Committee came out with a emotionally-worded statement entitled “IOC Takes Leadership Role in the UN Sports for Climate Action Initiative,” supporting the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Poland. The first paragraph included this: “The Initiative was launched today by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in partnership with […]
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