★ The Sports Examiner: Chronicling the key competitive, economic and political forces shaping elite sport and the Olympic Movement.★
★ To get the daily Sports Examiner Recap by e-mail: sign up here! ★
≡ THE BIG PICTURE ≡
The end of the International Olympic Committee’s three-day Executive Board meeting in Lausanne was marked by a wide-ranging news conference by IOC President Thomas Bach (GER), nearing the end of his second term on 23 June next year.
With an election for a new IOC President coming next March, he was asked to reflect on his own election and his experience across 12 years leading the Olympic Movement:
“When you are a candidate for the IOC President, you’re not a candidate because you want to be President. You’re a candidate because you have a vision for the future of the Olympic Movement, because you have ideas, a project for which you look, then, for support in the membership.”
Bach was elected in 2013, when the Olympic Movement was reeling from a perceived lack of credibility, reflected especially in bids for future Games, as traditional candidates were scared away by the heavy reported costs of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and spending on the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi (RUS).
But, international tensions were at a fairly low level compared to today, with actual wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and threats in Asia. Bach noted that as a significant positive:
“There, I was very lucky that at the beginning of my presidency, I could concentrate in conceiving this vision, based on my election platform, to conceive Olympic Agenda 2020, and so, now, this is why you see me very, very happy, and maybe, in some respects, also very relieved, that we could overcome all these many challenges and that with Paris 2024, Olympic Agenda is not a vision any more, it’s a reality, and that this reality has met – as we could see from these [approval] polls – the expectations of the world to unite the world in a peaceful competition.
“And at such moments, it does not make great sense to come back to every [challenge], over all the time. You cannot expect 12 years of a presidency being a honeymoon. So, therefore, you see me happy, if not to say, very happy.”
He declined to talk about his legacy, since he still has six months to go. But his comments concerning vision and a reference to his election platform are interesting, since the IOC’s rules for the 30 January presentations to the membership by the seven Presidential candidates require that “The presentation by the candidates must reflect the content of their respective Candidature Document published on the IOC website.” (The Candidature Documents have not yet been posted.)
¶
Bach spoke to multiple topics during the 52-minute session, including:
● The status of boxing on the 2028 Olympic program:
“This is in the hands of the national boxing federations, whether they want their athletes to give an opportunity to win Olympic medals or not. It’s very easy and there, we see there is some moves with a number of federations. We are watching this and when the time comes, we have to make, like for any recognition, a provisional recognition of any International Federation, we have to make an assessment whether there is a federation – and in this moment, it looks like the only one it could be is World Boxing – whether they are meeting the criteria which we have for such situations.
“And there, to be very clear, it cannot be IBA [International Boxing Association]. This story is over, for all the reasons: governance, ethical reasons, you know.”
● On the new Olympic Esports Games, to be held in Saudi Arabia in 2025, which he notes are “different and separate from the Olympic Games” and “opens us up to new audiences”:
“In the Olympic Games, we have an organizing committee, and we have the IOC Coordination Commission. For the Esports Games, we have created a new model, by having a joint committee, of the IOC and our organizing partners at the Saudi Olympic Committee. And this joint committee is hair by Mr. Ser Miang Ng [SGP] and co-chaired by the President of the Saudi National Olympic Committee, Prince Abdulaziz Al Saud.
“This joint committee – it’s six persons, three each – they had their first meeting, just in November. They have agreed on a roadmap now, how to approach the composition of the program, how to approach the stakeholders in esports, be it on the one side, International Federations, or sports federations, be it National Olympic Committees, or be it publishers or other stakeholders.
“There was a great unity in all these efforts, and so today we have received an interim report and are looking forward to more progress in the next couple of months.”
● Asked about a possible meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump:
“It’s in the best hands of the [U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee] and the [LA28] organizing committee.
“Whenever they would deem it appropriate, of course, the IOC will be at their side. But we are very confident with regard to the steps and efforts being undertaken by the organizing committee and by USOPC, taking early contact with the incoming team and we know also that President-elect Trump repeatedly declared his support for the Games, which we never had any doubt, because he has declared this support from the very beginning. So at this time, we are very confident and relaxed.”
● He was also asked about any worries for the 2030 Olympic Winter Games in the French Alps, in view of the collapse of the French government and the resignation of Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who was also the co-head of the Albertville 1992 Winter Games organizing committee:
“For the time being, we are not worried because of the fact that we have seen the support demonstrated by a very large majority in France to the 2030 [Winter] Games.”
● Of course, he was asked about the host selection for the next available Games, in 2036. Here, Bach was a bit more engaged than in the past:
“It will not happen in the next six months, and if for once, I’m answering to a speculative question, but please don’t take it as a precedence, then I would also say we will not see a targeted dialogue during the entire next year.”
It will be up to his successor after that.
Bach was relaxed and obviously still thrilled with the success of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, and you could sense that he is a little relieved that all these issues will be someone else’s problem next June.
¶
★ Receive our exclusive, weekday TSX Recap by e-mail by clicking here.
★ Sign up a friend to receive the TSX Recap by clicking here.
★ Please consider a donation here to keep this site going.
For our updated, 885-event International Sports Calendar for the rest of 2024, 2025 and beyond, by date and by sport, click here!
