COSTA NAVARINO, Greece – The International Olympic Committee, founded in 1894, has had nine presidents.
All have been white men. Eight have been Europeans. Avery Brundage, 1952-72, was American.
On Thursday, in just a single round of voting, the IOC elected Kirsty Coventry, 41, of Zimbabwe, its 10th president. She will formally take over from Thomas Bach in June in Lausanne. He was elected in 2013 and is termed out.
COSTA NAVARINO, Greece – Before Thursday’s vote here for the next president of the International Olympic Committee, it’s worth taking a moment to think about what might have been.
And how one of the most shocking deaths in the Olympic scene reverberates, still – with a warning for what is to come in arguably the most consequential IOC presidential election, ever.
It was the summer of 2018, and on the outdoor patio of the Royal Savoy hotel in Lausanne, Patrick Baumann and a few others were enjoying cigars and libations.
Three months later, he was gone — dead of a heart attack at the Buenos Aires Youth Games.
Most everyone knows there are nine movies in the core Star Wars canon. Then there is the 2016 prequel Rogue One, arguably the best in the anthology. It’s about a band at the outskirts of the galaxy in confrontation with the Empire.
This brings us to the situation involving the World Olympians Association and the International Olympic Committee.
Nominally, this situation would appear to be about money. There is a compelling argument, however, that it marks a set piece about the state of the IOC under the presidency of Thomas Bach even as it points to urgent consideration of a different direction the IOC might well consider under a new president — he or she will be elected in March.
The International Olympic Committee under president Thomas Bach has sought to work closely with the United Nations. Particularly when it comes to the rights and roles of women and girls.
So it was all the more noteworthy that the UN’s “Special Rapporteur” for, among other matters, women in sports took a plain shot Tuesday at the IOC for the controversy that erupted at the Paris Games in women’s boxing.
PARIS – As most everyone knows, George Washington is the first president of the United States of America.
One of the stories American schoolkids learn about Washington is how he decided to stop being president at the end of his second four-year term. The new country had broken away from Britain. There they had a king. The king is king until he dies. In this new country, Washington said, things were going to be different.
In 21st century jargon, we would call what Washington did an expression of best practices and world-class governance.
Speaking Saturday before the fuil membership of the International Olympic Committee, president Thomas Bach, nearing the end of his second term, pulled a George Washington. He said he would step down next year, at the end of his mandated 12 years.
Holy hell, but Thomas Bach really is out to get Seb Coe.
Anywhere and everywhere you go in Olympic circles these days, it’s the talk, and what transpired Friday – calling 911, Bach all but sticking a figurative knife into Coe in broad daylight, anointing Hugh Robertson, head of the British Olympic Association, an individual IOC member – was just the latest as the wheel of IOC presidential succession politics turns.
For months, Bach has sought to downplay the what-comes-next phase for International Olympic Committee leadership. His term, in theory, ends in June 2025. An election is purportedly set for sometime next year. If there is an election.
MUMBAI – International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach’s manta, change or be changed, is apt.
The challenge facing the IOC, the Olympic Games, indeed the wider Olympic movement, is both fundamental and existential. All of it is a 19th-century construct. Owing to broadcast television, U.S.-driven corporate sponsorship and, to some extent, Cold War rivalries, it found its footing in the 20th century. Now it is struggling to find a way in our 21st century.
Television ratings are down. The sponsor program needs a far-reaching re-do. Change is not an option. It’s a must. It’s why, as part of his speech Saturday night here opening the IOC’s 141st session, Bach for the first time made extensive reference to the possibilities of artificial intelligence and, too, announced the IOC would study the creation of an “Olympic Esports Games.”
Change is one thing. But the IOC is furiously slapping at different currents, trying to find direction, not least about its own rules and about whether Bach or someone else ought to be in charge come 2025, when Bach, in theory, is due to step down.
Is the Olympic movement at an inflection point?
Let’s face it, the Games are prone to strong sentiments and strong statements. It’s easy to get swept away by the passion and the emotion that the Olympics evoke – after all, that’s the source of their appeal.
But if that question has ever been worth asking, perhaps it’s now.
This week, on September 10, it will be a full 10 years since Thomas Bach was elected president of the International Olympic Committee.
A shockwave of epic proportions boomed out Thursday across the Olympic world.
The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, opted to take on – with the obvious goal of taking out – Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, the kingmaker once and perhaps again.
The obvious question: why? The follow-on: will Bach succeed? The IOC president is nothing if not intelligent and calculated. Then again, so is the sheikh.
