Joe Biden, addressing the nation for the first time Saturday night as president-elect, said it was time to heal and asserted, “We must restore the soul of America.”
Indeed. With the elephant in the room returning to golf in his golden Floridian enclave, we breathe fresh air, a collective sigh of relief. Moreover, it is time for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee to play what should be its vital part in deeply recommitting and reconnecting all Americans to truly be great again.
And to be what the world wants America to be — an ideal. The world loves the idea of America. That is the responsibility of the USOPC: to uphold and advance the best of the American ideas and ideals.
Now comes the question: can it be, can it do those things?
President-elect Joe Biden at a rally Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware // Getty Images
With Vice President-elect Kamala Harris at that same rally // Getty Images
If you ask the rest of the world, “What is the vision of the USOPC,” the answer would be, “We don’t know.” It’s true. Nobody knows. Surely, too, someone would say, “Why should we care?”
Because this is what we have learned over the past four years. Not only is it important to care. It is vital to know what America is and what America stands for.
It was 12 years ago that Biden inherited a broken land alongside the first Black man to be elected president. Now, Biden will walk back into the White House with the first vice-president who is a woman of color.
Now, too, Biden or Kamala Harris is likely to preside over the opening ceremony of the Los Angeles Summer Games in 2028. It proved a break from tradition in 2017 when LA got 2028 and Paris 2024 in an Olympic two-fer. In just a few weeks, Los Angeles organizers will be looking at the traditional seven-year Olympic run-up to the Games, the extra years having melted away.
We are heading, Olympic-wise, to Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen. Thank the lord. We need — we really, really, really need — a big screen. To laugh, to cry, to cheer wildly, for each other and ourselves.
Now we reset and restart.
To be, as the ideal of America has always been, the shining city on the hill.
But wait — in the real world, the International Olympic Committee, and the many pieces that make up the Olympic scene globally, have over the past 12 years noted, and well, that there are rivals, China and, don’t be fooled, Russia.
Both are in a far stronger position than before with the IOC, where relationships matter, and especially with president Thomas Bach. Financially, too, because the IOC has discovered that there are sources of wealth beyond American corporations and capital markets.
In comparison to Russia and China within the Olympic space, this: the United States is considerably weaker.
Know this, too: America as an ideal, in theory, is easy to like.
To underscore this notion — as just one of dozens of such messages, Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, site of the Paris 2024 Summer Games, tweeted Saturday a congratulatory note to Biden and Harris that seemed to capture the mood of many. It began, “Welcome back America!”
Back to 2017, three-some years ago — at an IOC assembly in Lima, Peru — and Hidalgo, along with Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, stood on stage celebrating with Bach as Paris got the 2024 Summer Games and LA 2028. That day, it was smiles all around.
In practice, America is not often so easy to like. The IOC in particular does not easily take to the United States. It does not. America is often the necessary evil, tolerated but not liked. The so-called Olympic family doesn’t like the hubris, the elitism that comes from American riches. They just don’t like it.
And as a complication, the United States — in Olympic terms — is different.
The USOPC is not a government enterprise — though in its latest iteration it is subject to purportedly more vigorous congressional oversight. It is in that respect all but singular. Everywhere else in the world the Olympic committee is in some fashion or another connected to government, formally as part of a federal ministry of sport or otherwise.
When a Games comes to the United States, you know which agency is in charge, at least from a federal government point of view? The United States Secret Service. That’s right. From a governmental perspective, it’s hard not to argue that the United States of America views an Olympics, first and foremost, as a security operation.
It’s indisputable that an Olympic team can serve as an exercise in soft power — political, economic and otherwise. But the U.S. government is not pushing the American team that way. Elsewhere? See Beijing 2008 and Sochi 2014. Look ahead to Beijing 2022 — Beijing will be the first city in the world to play host to both the Summer and Winter Games.
To that scorecard, more recent — and telling — evidence:
China’s Quanhai Li was days ago elected president of World Sailing.
This is just the beginning of a very long-term play for the Chinese. Li can be expected to usher in a line of Chinese federation presidents.
China didn’t just win this election, it won an election for an international sports federation that has long been a European stronghold with the obvious support of the IOC and the Chinese government, a huge signal across the Olympic movement.
Note: World Sailing also held elections for six vice presidential slots. The American candidate barely squeaked in, sixth.
To watch next: boxing. “We will find $50 million in the next two years for the development of AIBA,” the Russian businessman and boxing federation official Umar Kremlev said, Tass reported recently.
Why did Li win the sailing election, defeating incumbent Kim Andersen of Denmark?
In his first remarks as president, Li said the “most important responsibility is “to solve the enormous financial situation” the federation is confronting. “We look forward to the Olympic Games next year in Tokyo as scheduled. Otherwise, World Sailing will be in a challenging time.
“We must effectively manage finances, control unreasonable expenses, increase revenue and ensure a balance of income and expenditure.
“We have to find the causes of this economic crisis and come up with solutions to make sure that we can operate safely in the future.”
World Sailing, as the website Inside the Games has reported, is — like many IFs — facing significant financial difficulties. Its woes are in part tied to a headquarters move to London and governance reform. The financial picture is so bleak that the federation took out a $3.1 million loan from the IOC, purportedly enough to get through the Tokyo Olympics — if they happen.
In his campaign, Li said he was “very confident” he could bring new sponsorship. As the marvelous David Owen, a former correspondent for the Financial Times, explained, “His name has been linked in this regard with Evergrande, a Chinese property developer.”
Pandemic alert: those 2022 Games may or may not happen on time. Maybe they’ll be pushed back to 2023. China would have sound geopolitical reasons to go along with a pushback: 2023 will mark the 10-year anniversary of Xi Jinping’s presidency of the People’s Republic.
Who became a top-tier Olympic sponsor in 2017? In a 12-year deal said to be worth $800 million? The Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba.
It used to be that the IOC’s first-tier sponsor program was made up of nearly all U.S. companies. Now? Only half of the 14 are American.
Who runs the fencing federation? The Uzbek-born Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov, purportedly that country’s richest man, with a net worth of $14 billion.
It’s not for nothing that Bach is himself a gold medal-winning fencer.
Who, earlier this year, bought the original 1892 Olympic manifesto, Pierre de Coubertin’s 14-page document advocating for the revival of the Olympic Games, the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever sold at auction, for $8.8 million?
Usmanov.
He donated it to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. “Today we are witnessing history,” Bach said at the time.
Whose wife — Russian, of course — is one of the most successful rhythmic gymnastics coaches of all time and a former vice president of the international gymnastics federation? She is a winner of the IOC’s top award, the Olympic Order. In 2015, Bach presented her the award.
Her name is Irina Alexandrovna Viner-Usmanov, and if you think that just because she is a “former” gymnastics federation VP she has disappeared from that scene you really need a crash course in how the Olympics work.
Against this sort of thing, what has the United States got — or got going?
Let’s see.
The United States has one international federation president, David Haggerty of tennis. One. Russia already has two — fencing and shooting — pending the boxing election later this year.
There’s also chess, which is not an Olympic sport, but is — particularly if you’ve seen “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix — not to be dismissed. The international federation is rich with cash. It is headed by a Russian, Arkady Dvorkovich, who is widely considered a key figure in Russian politics and a Dmitry Medvedev confidant.
The USOPC would point to two indices, the Sports Political Power Index, which ranks the U.S. No. 1 based on international positions held, and the Global Sports Nations Index, which counts the U.S. No. 2 based upon international events bid for and hosted.
Those indices, which the USOPC uses to measure influence, don’t really measure influence. Instead, they measure the numbers of people on executive or technical committees. Numbers do not equal influence.
Rather, power is based upon the strength, visibility and leadership of the USOPC and of the American IOC members, and in those areas — especially right now — the United States is sorely lacking.
To be clear, a significant part of this is because Larry Probst and Scott Blackmun are out of the scene, the former USOC (as it was then called) chair, the latter the chief executive. They spent the better part of nine years forming and sustaining relationships.
The United States has three IOC members; Anita DeFrantz, a member since the mid-1980s, is currently a vice-president; to her credit, whenever you have a complex issue, you can count on DeFrantz to understand it, and thoroughly. The other two members are new, Haggerty and Kikkan Randall, who is an athlete member.
The chair of the USOPC board, Susanne Lyons, is not a member. In March, when the IOC was deciding whether to postpone the Games and the USOPC had a chance to show global leadership — a role the Canadians and Aussies and others seized instead — the USOPC took a poll of its constituencies before responding and Lyons said it was all OK because she, Lyons, had Bach’s cellphone number.
That was funny. Note: Susanne, you are not alone.
Lyons told the New York Times then that American importance historically and the outsized share of revenues that flows from American companies to the IOC can make it seem like the United States is throwing its weight around. “We are listened to in a different way,” she asserted.
The fundamental issue is whether the Americans are listened to at all.
And if so, except for the money, why.
Because this, for emphasis, is the point: the IOC has discovered it can find money, and lots of it, elsewhere.
The window for Lyons to become an IOC member seems to be closing if not disappearing. Sarah Hirshland, the chief executive, is unlikely to become a member.
The Chinese and Russians have long-play strategies. The Americans?
During the Chicago 2016 bid, the campaign held a meeting where all the American representatives of the IFs were brought together. Otherwise? The USOC — now the USOPC — has not brought together all these people to discuss issues, strategies or solutions.
The USOPC has no international relations plan. None. Or at least none that has been shared with American IF representatives. Each of them is on her or his own. No coordination. None.
The USOPC has never put forward a values statement: “This is what the United States of America stand for in regards to governance and transparency, and we expect you to articulate and advocate for these principles.” Or, “These are our values, and we expect you to articulate and advocate for them.”
Of the 50 national governing bodies, how many have an international relations plan? Maybe a handful. All have a high-performance plan. But an IR plan? How do you expect to achieve international prominence without long-term thinking.
Why doesn’t the USOPC reach out to some of the biggest names in the United States to spearhead its international relations strategy?
Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, who loved being in the Olympic scene when New York was bidding? Garcetti, who with a Biden/Harris victory is all but certain to play a significant role in a Democratic administration and is a welcomed presence in Lausanne?
For that matter: Tim Cook, the head of Apple? Evan Spiegel, at Snapchat? Jeff Bezos at Amazon? Melinda Gates? Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg? Dr. Jill Biden, for that matter — seems like a natural fit. People — even the biggest, the most important — find the five rings seductive. All the better if they have, you know, financial means.
So, back to 2028, which as this space has noted in prior columns is all but sure to register a surplus on the order of $1 billion or more for the organizing committee, and transform the Olympic movement just as 1984 did.
But note — LA did not win 2028 in an election. It probably could not have won, not with Donald Trump as president.
Not that Barack Obama was any better — see Chicago’s bid for 2016. Or George W. Bush — New York for 2012. Recall, too, that then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, Democrat of New York, traveled to Singapore to lobby for New York’s 2012 bid.
Who, with all this said, is the most important person in the United States in the Olympic movement?
Casey Wasserman, who runs LA 28.
Without doubt.
But it’s not Wasserman’s job to engineer a long-term plan within the USOPC to strengthen American sport, or American positioning, using LA28 as the catalyst. His job is to run a Games.
There are still seven-plus years to go. But, let’s be clear — right now there is no plan, no leadership, no momentum.
And let’s also be clear: the Chinese, as the sailing election underscores, and the Russians, as the coming boxing vote ought to make plain, are very hard at work.
The IOC knows this.
Amid a welcome reset, with the Hollywood lights shining bright, it’s all there for the USOPC — to walk toward those lights, to embrace the opportunity of a generation to reshape sport in the United States and the western hemisphere and to play a leadership role in the Olympic movement.
If only it can see it.