Ten deep (sort of, maybe) thoughts

Not everything that happens is itself worth a stand-alone column, even on the space-aplenty internet.

To that end, some recent news nuggets:

-- U.S. Olympic athletes send letter asking for other Russian sports to be investigated. Reaction: 1. There’s obviously a huge difference between state-sponsored or -sanctioned doping, and what has gone on, and for sure absolutely is going on, here. (If you think there are zero U.S. athletes engaged in the use of performance-enhancing substances, please send me a bank draft for a bridge in Brooklyn I would be delighted to sell you.) 2. The First Amendment says you can say almost anything you want. Have at it. 3. The risk, of course, is that such a letter — in the international sphere — appears completely, thoroughly sanctimonious. Lance Armstrong? Marion Jones? BALCO? Major League Baseball and the steroid era (probably the primary reason baseball is not back in the Olympic Games)? 4. With Los Angeles bidding for 2024, with every IOC member’s vote at issue, does it ever work for Americans to assume a position of such seeming moral superiority?

-- Premise: doping in Russia is bad and something has to be done. Not just in Russia. Everywhere. Reaction: 1. Obviously. 2. Seriously. 3. Now -- who's going to pay to put together a worldwide system that can really be way more effective? Let's start with $25-30 million, enough to more or less double the World Anti-Doping Agency's annual budget to the ballpark of $50-55 million. Where's that coming from? If you are an international sports federation, you don't have that kind of scratch. 4. Not even combined, the federations don't have it. 5. Governments? In virtually every country but the United States, funding for sport is a federal government function. 6. The IOC?

-- LA 2024 drops plans for an Olympic village near downtown, says if it’s picked that UCLA dorms would serve as athlete housing and USC would play host to a media village. Reaction: 1. This saves LA 2024 lots of money and removes an element of uncertainty from the bid file. 2. The biggest knock on LA is that it has played host twice to the Summer Games, in 1932 and 1984. In 1984, athletes stayed in the dorms at UCLA and USC. 3. Sure, the dorms at UCLA are better than you would find at universities in Europe. 4. The trick is convincing the European-dominated International Olympic Committee that 2024 is not a been-there, done-that. Going back to UCLA elevates that risk and is, frankly, going to require a major sales job. 5. The housing at USC is going to be really nice. Like, really excellent. The university is in the midst of a huge construction project that promises a thorough gentrification in its near-downtown neighborhood. But no one cares about the media. Clarification: none of the IOC members do, at least enough to swing a vote one way or the other.

-- LA 2024 gets a $2 billion stadium for the NFL Rams (and maybe another team). For free. Also, pretty much all major venues, and all hotels, are in place. And there’s a multibillion dollar-transit plan in the works that’s going to happen regardless of the Olympics. Reaction: 1. Is any city anywhere better-suited for the Summer Games? 2. Is the IOC ready — finally? — to embrace the Americans again? 3. If IOC president Thomas Bach really wants Agenda 2020 to be relevant, here is a world city that, as he has put it, not only talks the talk but walks the walk. 4. This is the most-important host city election in the modern era, determining the course of future bids. If the IOC keeps rewarding stupidity and waste, you have to ask, seriously, about its direction.

Watch out! @RampageNFL is loose in LA! https://t.co/zkwhvpn0ec 👀 pic.twitter.com/0SEbLJfcel

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) January 19, 2016

-- A Danish survey, measuring and comparing national representation from 2013 to 2015 in international sport, declares the United States is far and away the most influential nation in the world. Reaction: 1. Is this a cosmic joke? 2. No U.S. Olympic bids for 2020 or 2022. Why? 3. Chicago 2016. 4. New York 2012. 5. That soccer World Cup bid for 2022? How'd that work out? 6. The United States is seriously lacking in top-level representation. Everyone in the Olympic world knows this. You've got the newly elected head of the International Tennis Federation, and one member of the IOC executive board -- and a handful of others who are, say, technical directors or even a secretary general. Because of the way IOC rules work, the chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee board of directors, Larry Probst, is hugely unlikely to himself ever be on the IOC board. 7. The survey methodology: "The data behind the index consists of a total of 1673 positions across 120 international federations. Each position is weighed between 1 and 10 based on the level of sports political power. As an example, the president of the IOC scores 10, whereas a board member in a non-Olympic European federation receives the minimum score of 1." 8. There's an enormous difference between quantity of influence, which this survey purports to measure, and quality. To reiterate, see No. 3 and 4, which is why the USOC, with Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun in particular, has spent the past six years rebuilding relationships internationally, including the resolution of a revenue-sharing deal with the IOC that had made it all but impossible for the U.S. to consider a bid.

-- Voters in Iowa due to caucus in the next few days, followed by balloting in New Hampshire, and we're off to the races. Reaction: 1. If you want the Olympic Games back in the United States in 2024, you want Hillary Clinton to win in November. 2. Say what? 3. Yep. 4. You really think that Donald Trump, who advocates walls and bans, is remotely on the same page as the Olympic spirit? 5. Hillary Clinton, when she was senator from New York, went to Singapore in 2005 to lobby for New York City’s 2012 bid. In 1996, President and Mrs. Clinton led the U.S. delegation to the Atlanta Games, and Bill Clinton formally opened those Olympics. In 1994, Hillary Clinton led the U.S. delegation to the Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. 6. Bill and Hillary Clinton have a longstanding relationship with LA 2024 bid chairman Casey Wasserman.

-- Five days in Cuba for the first Olympic sports event there since President Obama’s announcement of a new normal between the U.S. and the island nation. Reaction: 1. You can see how Havana was once lovely. 2. Now it’s just mostly crumbling. Dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of concrete buildings are literally falling apart in the salt air. 3. You want potholes? You have maybe never seen roads so torn-up. It’s a wonder all those classic cars don’t fall into some of these potholes, which resemble nothing so much as sinkholes, never to plow forward again. 4. Big cars with fins are awesome. No seat belts — not so much. 5. My room at the Hotel Nacional was once the site of a mafia meeting. A plaque on the wall said so. 6. Frank Sinatra once stayed in the room next door. Another plaque. 7. If you get the chance, go to Havana now, before the flood of Americans — and all the corporate investment dollars — show up. It’s incredible in 2016 to go someplace and find no McDonald’s, no Starbucks, no Walmart. Not saying those brands are the zenith of American culture. But, you know, they're almost everywhere. Not Cuba. 8. It rained cats and dogs one night and seawater washed up nearly five blocks inland. Cuba is rich with potential but the infrastructure needs — the basics — are almost staggering: water, sewage, electricity, telephone, internet, roads, bridges and more. 9. U.S. mobile phones work pretty much everywhere in the world now. Not Cuba.

-- Alberto Juantorena, the track and field legend (gold medals, Montreal 1976, 400 and 800 meters), has for years now been a senior figure in Cuban sport. As of last August, he is also one of four vice presidents of track's international governing body, the IAAF, now headed by Sebastian Coe. (Historical footnote: it was Coe who, in 1979, broke Juantorena's world record in the 800, lowering it from 1:43.44 to 1:42.33. David Rudisha of Kenya now owns the record, 1:40.91, set at the London 2012 Games.) Two events in the next few weeks require Juantorena to pass through U.S. customs, one a meeting in Puerto Rico of what's called NACAC, an area track and field group, the other the indoor world championships in mid-March in Portland, Oregon. Juantorena has been granted one (1) visa by the U.S. authorities. That's good for one entry, not two. Reaction: 1. Someone in the U.S. government has to fix this. 2. And, like, immediately. 3. Juantorena or Antonio Castro, one of Fidel's sons, an activist in seeking the return of baseball to the Games, figure to be in the mix when the IOC gets around to naming a new member from Cuba. 4. Nothing will destroy the LA 2024 bid faster than word that it is difficult -- still, 14-plus years after 9/11 -- to get into the United States.

-- Run Gum, owned in part by U.S. 800-meter runner Nick Symmonds, files suit against the U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Track & Field, alleging an antitrust claim in connection with logo and uniform advertising rules at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Reaction: 1. Run Gum is a great product. The new cinnamon flavor is excellent. Recommendation: the gum is also great for people with migraines for whom caffeine is, as doctors like to say, medically indicated. Take it from someone who knows. 2. Why, though, the headache of a lawsuit? 3. The antitrust issues are nominally interesting but in the sphere of the Olympics the IOC's rules and, as well, the 1978 Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act almost always control. 4. So why a lawsuit? You file lawsuits when a) you profoundly disagree about something, b) you negotiate but can't reach agreement and/or or c) maybe you're just looking for publicity. 5. USATF, under the direction of chief executive Max Siegel, has made tremendous efforts in recent months to not only reduce friction at all levels but to actively promote collegiality. The annual meeting in December was all but a love-fest. Last September, USATF and its athletes advisory council agreed on a revenue distribution plan that will deliver $9 million in cash to athletes over the coming five years. 6. It's all good to make a living at track and field. Every athlete should be able to do so. That's not the issue. 7. Again: it's why a lawsuit and what's the motive? Symmonds, asked about that Thursday, said with a laugh,"I think Nick Symmonds going on a date with Paris Hilton -- that's a publicity play," adding, "Engaging in litigation -- engaging in litigation with the people putting on the freaking Olympic Trials that I have to compete at -- all that pressure on my shoulders, why would I want to do that, unless I care about the sport?" 8. No question Symmonds cares about the sport. Even so, whatever disagreement you might have, you couldn't talk it out? It's January. The Trials run July 1-10. That's more or less six months away. 9. Symmonds, asked whether there had been an in-person meeting or extensive negotiation on the issue before the filing of the case, said, no. He said he had sought via email only to "engage in dialogue" with Siegel and with USOC marketing guy Chester Wheeler but that was "months ago." He asserted, "The goal is to level the playing field. Whether that's done through [pre-trial] resolution or ultimately to trial, I’m not sure. I just know it seems so unfair that only apparel manufacturers, only registered apparel manufacturers, are allowed to bid on that space. It just seems so grossly unfair. We are just trying to level the playing field." At the same time, he said, referring to litigation, "This option allows me to stay in Seattle and focus on training and and focus on making my third Olympic team, and allows lawyers to have that conversation for me. That's a conversation I don't have the time or energy or resources to have. I know my limitations. I'm not equipped to have that conversation." 9. It's intriguing that the case includes the same lawyers that pursued the O'Bannon antitrust matter against the NCAA. Because you're going for scorched-earth or because you're trying to reach a just result? 10. Symmonds likes to say that he is all for advancing athlete interests. Taking him at face value, because he assuredly has great passion about a great many things, it's also the case that lawsuits cost money. This particular lawsuit asks for triple damages and attorney's fees. As for damages -- who would that benefit? As for attorney's fees -- same question. In the meantime, the dollars it's going to take to defend this case -- whose pocket, ultimately, is that money going to come out of? Big-time lawyers don't come cheap. Try $600 an hour, and up. If you were on the USATF athletes' board, wouldn't you want to ask about that element -- in the guise of finding out who, ultimately, is being served?

-- Kuwait appeals court acquits Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah of charges, overturning six-month jail sentence. The sheikh is a major powerbroker in Olympic and FIFA circles. Reaction: 1. What's going on in Kuwait, with various twists and turns, can all be tied to friction between Sheikh Ahmad and the Kuwaiti sports minister, Sheikh Salman al-Sabah. Sheikh Salman ran in 2014 for the presidency of the international shooting federation. He lost. 2. Never bet against Sheikh Ahmad.

Sport at the crossroads: Seb Coe wins IAAF presidency

BEIJING — With track and field at a historic crossroads, the IAAF membership on Wednesday elected Great Britain’s Seb Coe president.

Coe defeated Sergey Bubka of Ukraine, 115-92, two great champions of and advocates for the sport facing off in an election that reflected on track and field’s past but, more important, its future.

After the two men exchanged congratulations at the dais, an emotional Coe said, “I think for most of us in this room, we would conclude that the birth of our children are big moments in our lives, probably the biggest. But I have to say that being given the opportunity to work with all of you, to shape our sport, is probably the second-biggest momentous occasion in my life.”

Bubka, graceful, said, “I am a happy man and I am sitting in front of you because I love athletics,” what track and field is called everywhere in the world but the United States. “This is my life. Nothing has changed in my life. I will continue to serve athletics with dignity and deep passion, as I did before.”

A few minutes later, Bubka was elected vice president, along with representatives from Qatar (Dahlan Al Hamad, head of the Asian confederation), Cameroon (Hamad Kalkaba Malboum, chief of the African confederation), and Cuba (the legendary Alberto Juantorena, the 1976 Montreal 400 and 800 meters champ, now a key figure in his nation's sport hierarchy).

The 2019 world championships will be held in Doha, Qatar.

In another key development, USA Track & Field president Stephanie Hightower was easily elected to the IAAF’s ruling council. She secured the most votes, 163, for the six seats reserved for women on the board, more even than Olympic gold medalist Nawal el-Moutawakel, the IOC member and overseer of the 2016 Rio Games, who drew 160.

Hightower said she was "humbled and thrilled to have been selected to serve."

The 2021 world championships are due to be staged in Eugene, Oregon; the 2016 world indoors, next March in Portland.

“I congratulate Lord Coe on his election as IAAF president, and I am excited to continue to work with him on the important projects that our organization began with president Diack,” TrackTown USA president Vin Lananna said in a statement.

He added, “Together with our friends at the IAAF and USA Track & Field, I am confident that we will create a lasting legacy for the sport.”

Four more Americans won key posts Wednesday, too, signs of emerging USATF strength at the international level: Anne Phillips was elected chair of the federation’s women’s committee, Maryanne Daniel one of the two female members of the race-walking committee. Bill Roe was elected to the cross-country committee, David Katz re-elected to the IAAF technical committee.

In all, USATF went an unprecedented five-for-five -- an emphatic rebuttal to domestic naysayers who had been hugely critical of the nominees put forth last December in Los Angeles by the USATF board.

Hightower, Phillips and Daniel emerged as the top vote-getters in their categories.

“Putting these candidates forward was a strategic decision by our board to be a leader rather than a follower in the IAAF’s new era,” USATF board chair Steve Miller said.

"None of these outcomes was guaranteed. Our election success was the result of a lot of hard work by our candidates, our staff and by our closest colleagues in the IAAF congress. Today’s elections are simply the start of what will be many months and years of hard work at the IAAF level.”

Voting for the IAAF’s 27-member ruling council showed the emerging strength of the Middle East in world sports. In addition to Al Hamad, the IAAF elected representatives from the United Arab Emirates, Ahmad Al Kamali, and Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Nawaf Al Saud.

Spain’s Jose Maria Odriozola, meanwhile, took over as treasurer from Russia’s Valentin Balakhnichev.

The presidential vote total, 34 years to the day after he set a then-world record for the mile in Zurich, 3:48.53, reflected Coe’s strength around the world: Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and North America. South America, with its 13 votes, was always a Bubka redoubt.

Svein Arne Hansen of Norway, president of the European athletics federation, issued a statement that said, “I would like to congratulate my friend Sebastian on bering elected as president of the IAAF. I am looking forward to working closely with him over the coming years for the good of our sport.”

Coe formally takes office on August 31, at the end of the 2015 world championships.

The winning margin, 23 votes, also may prove significant as things go forward: comfortable enough for Coe to claim a commanding mandate but not so large as to, in any way, embarrass Bubka.

Outgoing president Lamine Diack, who served for 16 years, said, “For me, it’s a dream come true that I can pass on the baton to a new generation, to Sebastian, who has been prepared for the job. And I think we can say that our sport is in safe hands …

“The white-haired generation,” Diack said, “has done what it could. Now over to the black-haired generation.”

Track and field has, of course, long been the centerpiece of the Summer Games.

As Coe noted at a post-election news conference, “Track and field is the No. 1 sport. I am absolutely delighted to be president of the No. 1 sport. I will do everything within my human capabilities to make sure our sport maintains the values, maintains the strong legacy and the very firm foundations president Diack has left me.”

At the same time, track is increasingly being challenged by, among others, swimming and gymnastics; moreover, survey after survey suggests young people may increasingly be interested in sitting on the couch and playing video games.

And track seems chronically to be beset by doping scandals — headline after headline in recent weeks, for instance.

During the campaign, Coe aggressively defended the IAAF’s anti-doping efforts.

“As you have seen,” he said to delegates from the more than 200 federations just before ballots were cast, “I will always be in your corner.

“Your fight is my fight.”

This proved consistent with his all-along strategy, which emphasized not only who he was — relationships in Olympic sport can be everything — but, even more so, a plain-spoken program of rich content.

In contrast, Bubka — who also ran a spirited campaign — was more apt to turn to the relationship aspect.

Two days before the election, for instance, Bubka sent out an email blast that linked to a photo album from stops along the campaign trail.

There is no question — zero — that Bubka, the 1988 gold medalist in the pole vault who for 10 years has been head of the national Olympic committee of Ukraine, is both personable and eminently likable.

In the end, however, the IAAF decided it wanted, and needed, more.

Time and again, Coe would go back not just to his record of achievement — Olympic gold medalist in the 1500 meters in Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984, chief of the enormously successful London 2012 Games — but to the manifesto he put forward several months ago.

Broadly, Coe’s vision sketched out for the IAAF a platform rooted in integrity and credibility; creativity and change; enhanced transparency; the imperative of bringing in more sponsors, and doing more with existing corporate partners; increased financial and administrative support to the members; deeper connection with governments; intensified engagement with track’s current and potential audience, notably young people; and a far more robust communication strategy, both within the federation and out.

“Everything you do in the sport is underpinned by trust,” Coe said at that post-election news conference.

He also said, “This has been a very, very long, hard, tough campaign,” asserting it had “given the sport a chance to pause for breath, to review itself, renew itself, think about what the next 30 or 40 years look like.”

That the time for change is now had become crystal clear.

Even Diack himself said so, in the congress: “Perhaps you shouldn’t have elected me in 2011. I had already decided to leave,” adding a moment later, “But we decided to continue working together, and to pursue the path that we followed.”

That path has been a slow walk, the last few years of Diack’s presidency seeing the sport launch the World Relays in the Bahamas but otherwise stagnate in significant ways; the presentation of a track meet, for instance, pales in comparison to that of a world-class swim meet.

At the same time, Diack leaves the IAAF with what Coe called “an extremely strong foundation.” In 2016, the federation’s revenue projects out to $81.9 million, including a $40 million payout due from the IOC. IAAF reserves at the end of 2014 totaled about $74 million, up $12 million from just four years ago.

That said, as a financial report made public Wednesday underscored, the IAAF is hugely dependent on television rights fees — $27 million of its roughly $59 million in income for 2014 — and needs to figure out how to grow that pie.

Indeed, that’s the apt metaphor for track and field itself: it’s strong but there is so much sleeping potential there.

That, in a nutshell, is the theme Coe tapped into.

As he said at the news conference, “Our product is athletics but our business is entertainment.”

During the campaign, Coe also had some influential help.

It was known in closely held circles that the IOC president, Thomas Bach, would not have minded — not one bit — a Coe presidency, even though Bubka has for several years been a member of the IOC’s policy-making executive board.

Same for another key personality in the Olympic and international sports scene, Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah.

John Coates of Australia, an IOC vice president, issued a statement calling the vote a “great day for athletics and international sport,” adding, “Seb was clearly best qualified for the presidency as not only an Olympic champion, businessman and politician but as a person of the very highest integrity and character who has organized a most successful Olympic Games.”

The British government assuredly played a role in supporting Coe’s campaign. Hugh Robertson, the 2012 Olympics minister, served as a lead advisor.

The British prime minister, David Cameron, took to Twitter:

Delighted @sebcoe has been elected the new president of the IAAF - an outstanding athlete who delivered the brilliant London 2012 Olympics.

— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) August 19, 2015

Diack, at least publicly, remained studiously neutral during the race. But it was an open secret that he had been piqued two years ago when Bubka ran for the IOC presidency that Bach won; Bubka’s candidacy prevented Diack from publicly supporting Bach. Did any of that linger?

Coe logged over 700,000 kilometers in the air since Christmas, criss-crossing the world several times over to meet with track and field officials virtually everywhere.

On the flight to Beijing for this history-making 50th IAAF congress, three members of his team were asleep “before the wheels left the tarmac,” Coe said. A flight attendant said to Coe, wow, they sure seem relaxed. He said, “No, no, no — they’re absolutely knackered.”

He also said Wednesday about the marathon effort: “I would also like very briefly to thank my teams — because when I was asleep, they were still working hard into the night,” including the veteran strategist Mike Lee, who can now claim another victory.

Coe went on to note that credit was truly due his wife, saying she had "borne the brunt of most of this over the last year." He quipped, "I will be meeting her outside the main congress hall with a photograph of me, just to remind her what I look like.”

Coe gambled big-time Wednesday, standing only for president. Bubka put his name in for both the top spot and for vice-president.

Everyone thus understood at the core that if Coe lost, he was out of town on Thursday, and very likely out of the sport for good. Did track and field want to run the risk of losing his experience, expertise and more?

“Congress, friends,” Coe said in remarks before the balloting that would name just the sixth president in IAAF history, dating to 1912, “there is no task in my life for which I have ever been better prepared, no job I have ever wanted to do more and to do with greater commitment.

“With confidence and affection, my friends, I place myself in your hands today. If you place your trust in me, I will not let you down.”

Medellín: a city transformed

MEDELLIN, Colombia -- High atop the Santo Domingo barrio in this city's First District sit, incongruously, three black slate cubes. This is the $4 million Spanish Library, opened in March 2007. The library features books, computers, community meeting rooms, art exhibits and, intriguingly, what's called a ludoteca, run by a public agency called INDER, staffed by a specially trained worker in a green-and-gold uniform. Always -- green-and-gold. That's the marker that it is official. That's the signal that it is safe.

A ludoteca is a mommy-and-me hang-out spot for moms and kids ages 1 to 5. There are balls and mats things to roll on and play with, an immersion in sports from the get-go. "This program is really great," says Ana Maria Acevedo, 32, who was there one day recently with her 23-month-old, Roxana Echavarria. "We feel we are working together."

Around Medellín, there are now dozens upon dozens of ludotecas. "Through sports," says a senior city spokeswoman, Paula Bustamante Jaramillo, "you remove them from conflict. You give them room. You give them tools. Violence is about easy money. If you change the context from the beginning, if you make it a family context from the beginning, then the whole context is different. It is so beautiful. And it is so simple."

Twenty years ago, Medellín was known as the most dangerous city in the world.

Now it is, truly, a city transformed.

Now it is bidding for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, against Buenos Aires and Glasgow, Scotland. The International Olympic Committee will select the winner July 4 at an all-members assembly in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Medellín's candidacy poses a fascinating test for the IOC.

At issue, bluntly, are 20-year-old stereotypes of Medellín and, for that matter, all of Colombia -- cocaine, coffee, corruption -- amid the axiom that politics, especially sports politics, can sometimes be as much about perception as reality.

Reality check: the drug lord Pablo Escobar has been dead since December, 1993.

That is a generation. That is long enough to grow up in in Medellín and to get so good at bike-racing that you can go to the London Games and win a gold medal.

"I travel all over the world to participate in sport competition and I am always asked the question about safety in Colombia," said 21-year-old Mariana Pajón, the 2012 women's BMX London champion. "And I am constantly having to tell people, including my fellow athletes, that Medellín is not what people think it is."

The Youth Games is the pet project of the current IOC president, Jacques Rogge. It came to life midway through his term, in 2007, and was envisioned to be set in a city and country that was never going to be able to stage the full Olympic Games.

Thus, for instance, the inaugural edition of the Summer Youth Games went to Singapore in 2010. To win those Games, Singapore beat Moscow. Russia of course put on the 1980 Summer Games and will stage the 2014 Winter Games -- not to mention a raft of other events in the coming years, including the 2018 soccer World Cup and the 2015 swimming world championships.

To keep the project afloat, however, the second edition of the Summer YOG is due to go to Nanjing, China, in 2014 -- just six years after the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. The budget is believed to have soared to more than $300 million.

Within influential Olympic circles, there are concerns that already YOG has overgrown its original mandate.

Assessing the three 2018 YOG candidates:

In 1997, Buenos Aires bid for the 2004 Summer Games, eliminated in the first round, losing a run-off vote with Cape Town, South Africa. Buenos Aires also will play host to the IOC session this September at which the IOC will both elect Rogge's successor and select the site of the 2020 Summer Games.

Glasgow is not only bidding for 2018, it already has been picked to stage the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Moreover, Scotland is of course part of the United Kingdom, which obviously just last summer put on the Summer Games. The Glasgow bid file explicitly "seeks to build on the London 2012 Olympic Games and use the momentum to ensure a powerful and impactful YOG six years later."

That leaves -- per the original terms of what YOG is supposed to be all about, a city and country otherwise not in the running for the Summer Games -- Medellín.

If that weren't enough by itself, there's more -- much more -- to recommend Medellín.

In its evaluation commission report issued earlier this month, Medellín was said to present "minimal risk to the IOC."

In part, that's because of the experience the city gained from putting on the South American Games in 2010. The evaluation report praised the "compact concept and use of existing venues" and the depth of "good experience in hosting international and multi-sport events."

It's also because, practically speaking, all the venues are ready to go -- 20 of 24. Because most everything got built, and only three years ago, for the South American Games, the only permanent venue yet to be built would be a new BMX range. Three others would be temporary -- triathlon, sailing and road cycling. The Medellín 2018 operating budget: an estimated $170.5 million.

For good measure, in 2011 the IOC recognized Medellín with its "Sport and Environment Award" for its work at the 2010 South American Games, citing a variety of initiatives.

Others have also taken note of what is going on in Medellín.

In January, the New York Times devoted its "36 Hours" travel feature to Medellín. It cited, among other things, El Poblado, "a villagey part of town that is thick with bars and excellent restaurants."

In March, Medellín won the worldwide "Innovative City of the Year" competition, beating out New York and Tel Aviv, chosen in part for its modern transit system, environmental policies and network of museums, schools, libraries and cultural centers. The contest is sponsored by the non-profit Urban Land Institute in association with the banking concern Citi and the marketing services department of the Wall Street Journal.

Why else did Medellín win? Because, in part, the city averaged 10 percent growth for each of the 10 years between 2002 and 2011, an investment consultant telling the Financial Times earlier this year those are "Asian Tiger" numbers.

Medellín's metro system, incidentally, has its own unique way. Bogota, the Colombian capital, does not have a metro; Medellín does, repelte with cable cars to get to the city's high points. Thus it's a point of enormous civic pride. Stations and cars are spotless. There's no eating or drinking; no graffiti, either. It's all part of what around town is called "metro culture," and to underscore the point there's even a library at the Acevedo station.

This is all part of the transformation. Several years after Escobar died, a new mayor took over, Sergio Fajardo, now the regional governor. A mathematician turned politician, he promoted a wide-ranging agenda that linked education, culture, sports and community development with infrastructure and notable architecture such as the Spanish Library.

The facility that used to be a women's jail near the San Javier metro station? That's now a library, too.

In the Fourth District, near what used to be an enormous garbage dump known colloquially as "Fidel Castro," the architecturally notable Cultural Development Center of Moravia opened in 2008. A few months ago, a kindergarten opened across the way.

"If you build a beautiful library in a poor neighborhood, it gives people a sense of importance; it raises their dignity and gives them access to goods such as education," Fajardo, seen as a presidential contender by 2018, told the Financial Times earlier this month.

"It also brings visitors from other parts of the city -- something that encourages social integration."

The current mayor, Aníbal Gaviria, said in a statement, "Medellín stands today as an example for many cities around the world, because despite having lived through difficult times 20 years ago, we have undergone a true metamorphosis.

"We are now a city filled with life, thanks to the innovative approach taken at every step, both in social programs and urban development."

In April, the magazine U.S. News published a lengthy column entitled "Why Medellín, Columbia is a great retirement spot," citing the "calming and peaceful" red brick buildings and "swatches" of flowers, "friendly, helpful and hospitable" people, always-temperate climate and -- not to be forgotten -- the El Tesoro shopping mall, "as impressive … as you'll find anywhere in the world."

Colombia played host to the 2011 FIFA under-20 World Cup; Medellín staged some matches. Last month, FIFA, obviously satisfied, awarded Colombia the 2016 futsal World Cup.

Also last month, the international sportswriters association, AIPS, held a regional "Sports Games"  in Medellín; 164 journalists from South, Central and North America were on hand, and on May 21 a seminar brought together journalists and Olympic champions Jefferson Perez of Ecuador and Alberto Juantorena of Cuba.

Next year, the United Nations World Urban Forum will be staged in Medellín. Since its first meeting in Nairobi in 2002, the Forum has grown in size and scope as it has hopscotched around the world: Barcelona in 2004, Vancouver in 2006, Nanjing in 2008, Rio de Janeiro in 2010, Naples in 2012.

Some 4,500 people will be in Medellín for the UN event in 2014.

"This," said Juan Pablo Ortega, the chief executive officer of the Ruta N technology initiative in central Medellín and a Fulbright scholar at MIT in 2007-08, "is candidly part of the strategic view -- to be a city of big events."

No one, by the way, is pretending there isn't still crime in Medellín. In 1991, Medellín recorded 6,349 homicides. That number has since dropped by 80 percent.

In its evaluation, the IOC said, "In Medellín, crime is still a problem," then said in the very next sentence the city had made "admirable progress" to "significantly improve the standards of safety in the city." It also said the president of the country "guaranteed" that "all necessary measures would be taken to ensure the security and peaceful celebration of the YOG."

"Foreign investors are keen to do business with Colombia," the president, Juan Manuel Santos, said in a statement. "Over 640 foreign companies have come to Colombia since I took office," in August, 2010, "and they are now more concerned about legal insecurity than physical insecurity. Security is now a non-issue."

When it comes to crime -- there's crime in Buenos Aires and Glasgow. There's for sure crime in Rio and the Summer Games are going there in 2016.

Bottom line: would the UN be coming to Medellín if it weren't convinced the city wasn't just transforming but, indeed, transformed?

Want more evidence of how Medellín has been transformed?

Here's one point to consider:

If Medellín wins for 2018, the opening ceremony will be staged at the same 44,500-seat stadium where the bid committee now has its headquarters -- which, incidentally, is across the street from the aquatics complex with 10 pools. Across a cozy plaza -- where butterflies flutter and parrots, including brilliant macaws, chatter up on the trees -- are the environmental award-winning volleyball, basketball, gymnastics and combat sports buildings. Though they have lights, those halls were built to take advantage of natural lighting and, because the climate is so mild, don't need air-conditioning.

Last November, Madonna -- the Material Girl herself -- played that stadium. Not just one show. Two. Back-to-back.

Here's point two:

Steps away from where the "Fidel Castro" dump used to be sits a soccer field. In his time, Pablo Escobar put up towers and lights so that the people could play ball at night.

Now, that field has new lights and, moreover, new turf. It is run by INDER. The field is busy morning, noon and night.

"For us, the page is turned," the Colombian IOC member and the country's sports minister, Andrés Botero Phillipsbourne, said.

Added the 2018 bid chief executive, Juan Camilo Quintero, "The transformation in our city is huge. We have passed from the dark to the light through the last 20 years," adding a moment later, "The legacy is through sport, education and culture. That is the perfect fit for our city. This is the reason the Youth Olympic Games were created. This is the DNA of that."