An open letter: the White House delegation to Rio

President Barack Obama

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

August 2, 2016

Dear Mr. President:

Coming up on three years ago, I wrote you an “open letter” critical of your decision to send to the Sochi 2014 Winter Games an official White House delegation that did not include yourself, the First Lady, the vice president nor, indeed, any member of your cabinet.

On Tuesday, the White House announced that Secretary of State John Kerry will head the White House delegation to the Rio 2016 Summer Games.

Mr. President, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how much I respect you personally as well as the office you hold. I voted for you twice. If I could, I would vote for you again this November. I believe history will treat you kindly — that, with time, you will come to be seen as what you truly are and have been, one of our greatest presidents in more than 200 years.

With all that said, sir:

Please permit me the opportunity to address you in another “open letter,” mindful that I am grateful to call home a country where I may give voice to criticisms and that, as well, any such criticisms relate solely to matters of policy. In no way are they personal.

The announcement that Secretary Kerry will lead the 2016 delegation underscores the futility and hypocrisy inherent in what the White House tried to do — with, at best, limited impact — in connection with the Sochi Games.

Can we — you, me, all of us — acknowledge now the truth of the matter?

That what the White House sought in 2014 was to leverage the spotlight of the Olympic Games to exploit the American position in dealing with the Russians, in particular Mr. Putin, while simultaneously expressing considered frustration, if not more, with the International Olympic Committee?

And to what purpose?

The record is plain.

In October 2009, you and the First Lady went to Copenhagen to lobby the IOC for Chicago’s 2016 Summer Games bid.

In retrospect, we can perhaps observe it might be all to the good that Chicago did not win. Imagine, Mr. President, the worldwide media uproar in anticipation of a 2016 Chicago Games over the murder rate in Chicago and, by extension, American gun-control policies. Not to mention the national embarrassment that is Mr. Trump, whom you appropriately described on Tuesday as “unfit” and “woefully unprepared” for the presidency.

At any rate, you went to Copenhagen — the first sitting president, ever, to lobby the IOC in such a fashion.

The members not only awarded the 2016 Games to Rio de Janeiro, they booted Chicago in the very first round. Tales still circulate within Olympic circles of the IOC members idling on buses while waiting for your security detail to give the all-good to come in to the convention hall.

Since then, the White House’s — by extension, the federal government’s — relationship with the global Olympic movement and, more broadly, international sport, has deteriorated to the point of dreadful, and that is being generous.

Maybe you have forgiven if not forgotten. But it’s something of an open secret that your trusted advisers may hardly have done so.

Who brought the indictments against FIFA? The U.S. Justice Department, headed by Ms. Loretta Lynch. Assuredly, the Attorney General wields considerable latitude in her prosecutorial choices. At the same time, who does the Attorney General report to? That would be you.

Before you named her Attorney General, Ms. Lynch served as U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, for five years heading the office for the Eastern District of New York. This past May, it was the Eastern District that opened an inquiry into allegations of state-sponsored Russian doping — as if a Russian matter should, on some theory, be a matter for American law enforcement.

Imagine, sir, if the tables were turned. The American court system, indeed the federal courts with their limited jurisdiction, are filled with allegations of wrongdoing each and every day. Are the Russians weighing in to impart their view of justice on our behalf? Are they mounting a campaign to convince Americans and others around the world that, for instance, the death penalty, legal in several U.S. states, is illegal it not immoral?

Perhaps there is this: at least you didn’t try to stick it further to the Olympic scene by naming Ms. Lynch to the 2016 delegation. Just Secretary Kerry; the U.S. ambassador to Brazil; three other federal officials, and the swim legend Mark Spitz.

The disregard with which your administration views the Olympic scene could hardly have been more apparent when, last October, the Association of National Olympic Committees held its annual meeting in Washington, just blocks from the White House.

Since becoming the IOC president in 2013, Thomas Bach has met with more than 100 heads of government or state. But, notably, not you.

Indeed, at the Sochi opening ceremony, Mr. Bach, obviously if indirectly referring to you, said the Olympics should not be “used as a stage for political dissent or for trying to score points in internal or external political contests.”

Mr. Bach also said in opening the Sochi Games, “Have the courage to address your disagreements in a peaceful, direct political dialogue and not on the backs of the athletes.”

At the ANOC event, no senior U.S. official had the courage to show until several days into the event when — your White House obviously alerted that this show of American defiance might not reflect well on a Los Angeles bid for the 2024 Summer Games — Vice President Biden appeared from behind the curtain.

Mr. Biden stayed for all of seven minutes.

As for LA, and its 2024 contest with Paris, Rome and Budapest: the heads of state or government of France, Italy and Hungary have all said they are coming to Rio for the Games opening ceremony.

But not you.

“It is absolutely normal that participating countries at major events such as the Olympic Games, being organized every four years, are represented by high-level state leaders,” the Hungarian release, issued Tuesday, said. “This is especially true for countries that have bid to host the Olympic Games.”

It’s in this full, indeed rich, context that one has to view the 2014 Sochi White House delegation — as one of a series, since that 2009 Chicago defeat, of provocations.

Perhaps it is the case that the dots don’t connect. But it plainly looks like they do. And we both know this truism: in politics, perception is as important than reality, if not more so.

To be honest, of course, in our popular culture, the Russians make for excellent villains. Think only of Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV," or the bad guys in James Bond movies, or even Boris and Natasha from “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.”

Mr. Putin, right or wrong, fair or not, plays the role for many of the arch-villain of our time.

How easy was it to tap into all that sentiment while amplifying a disregard for the Olympic scene?

The White House said in 2014 that your schedule simply didn’t allow you to travel to Sochi.

This, Mr. President, begs credulity.

The central issue was the controversy that you latched onto sparked by the Russian anti-gay propaganda law. A couple months before the Games, you remarked, “Nobody is more offended than me by some of the anti-gay and lesbian legislation that you’ve been seeing in Russia.”

For the opening ceremony, you named two openly gay athletes: Billie Jean King, the tennis star, and skating gold medalist Brian Boitano.

A tennis player — at the Winter Olympics?

For the closing, you threw a little more gas on the fire by naming Caitlin Cahow, winner of Olympic silver and bronze medals in ice hockey, another gay athlete, to the closing ceremony delegation.

You might remember that Ms. King ended up going to the closing ceremony; her mother passed away the day of the opening ceremony. Ms. Cahow took part in the opening ceremony.

You might recall, too, that in a commentary for CNN published a few weeks before the 2014 Games, Ms. King had said, in part:

“Is our nation making a statement on Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law by sending gay men and women to represent us in Sochi? Perhaps we are.”

Perhaps?

The right answer to Ms. King’s rhetorical question: obviously.

In that same piece, she also said:

“… I hope these Olympics will be a watershed moment for the universal acceptance of all people.”

That for sure has not happened. We all have a long way to go. Yes, the U.S. Supreme Court has since made same-sex marriage the law of our land. But that has hardly triggered a rush in other countries to follow our lead.

Ms. King also said in her piece:

“I have a saying that 98 percent of winning is showing up. So we will show up in Russia. We will support our athletes and cheer them as loudly as possible. And we will keep the equality conversation alive.”

When she got home from her White House-sanctioned Sochi-related activism, Ms. King, in an Associated Press feature, said she would like the IOC to add sexual orientation to the list of protections in its charter and to consider the issue when deciding host countries for future Olympics.

The IOC did add sexual orientation to its list of protections, as part of its Agenda 2020 “reforms” enacted in December 2014. But it would have done so regardless of Ms. King. Or anyone from the United States.

As for the second point: not so much. The IOC competition for the 2022 Winter Games got down to Kazakhstan and China. Neither can boast about its human-rights record. In 2015, the IOC went for Beijing.

And if it were the “equality conversation” that was the true impetus for the composition of the Sochi delegation, Mr. President, that imperative would hold even more validity in connection with Rio and 2016.

As the New York Times reported on July 5, Brazil is arguably the world’s deadliest place for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.

Over the past four-plus years, the newspaper reported, citing Grupo Gay de Bahia, an advocacy group, nearly 1,600 people have died in hate-motivated attacks. That means a gay or transgender person is killed almost daily in Brazil.

The Times story quotes the advocacy group’s manager as saying that the numbers represent “only the tip of the iceberg of violence and bloodshed,” since police here often, as the paper reported, “omit anti-gay animus when compiling homicide reports.” An Amnesty International Brazil official, the paper further reported, said, “Homophobic violence has hit crisis levels, and it’s getting worse.”

So much outrage over a Russian propaganda law in the run-up to Sochi 2014 but, in comparison, comparative silence in these weeks and months before Rio 2016 about horrific violence in Brazil?

Mr. President, you proved eloquent, as usual, in decrying the June massacre that took 49 lives at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Yet nothing about the slow, steady and awful rate of homicides in Brazil?

The Olympics are assuredly imperfect. But there is no other institution in our fragile world that offers the very notion you have spent much of your time in office promoting — we are all better when we stand, in peace, together.

With that in mind, please allow me to close with an unsolicited suggestion.

Next year, at an assembly in Lima, Peru, the IOC will decide the 2024 Summer Games site.

By then, you will be out of office. We can all hope that Ms. Clinton — an avid public supporter of the Olympic notion — is your successor. At any rate, if you were to appear in Lima, and once again address the IOC on behalf of an American candidate city, it might be therapeutic all around.

It also could be awesome.

You could even start by saying something like, “Sorry about that last time. I for sure didn’t mean to make you sit around for a few minutes just on my account.” Take it from there, sir. There’s a powerful argument that the world needs what Los Angeles, what California and what our great country can — in service and humility — offer.

As you have proven repeatedly, such humility, as well as considered doses of humor and empathy, can often achieve great things, particularly in the pursuit of pluralism and tolerance. Being strident rarely gets us anywhere.

Thank you, sir, for your attention and consideration. And for your years of leadership. Godspeed.

Sincerely,

Alan Abrahamson

3 Wire Sports

Los Angeles, California

Feds to international sports movement: drop dead

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday flipped a big, fat middle finger to the international sports movement. On what grounds? And to achieve, exactly, what?

Did anyone at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn stop for even a second to think about the consequence — to the Los Angeles 2024 Summer Games bid, to the possibility of an American World Cup men's soccer tourney bid for 2026, to the interests of U.S. athletes everywhere — in opening a criminal investigation into allegations of state-sponsored Russian doping?

It is very, very difficult to make even — a little law talk here — a scintilla of sense from what, at first impression, seems like nothing so much as an outrageous, politically driven abuse of prosecutorial and law enforcement discretion.

In the United States, the law does not criminalize sports doping.

Italy, just to pick one — sure. But not the United States.

Yet here come the feds, reportedly launching a criminal investigation into sports doping. By athletes who are not Americans. What?

Indeed, as the New York Times first reported, the Department of Justice, through that Brooklyn prosecutor’s office, is “scrutinizing Russian government officials, athletes, coaches, anti-doping authorities and anyone who might have benefitted unfairly from a doping regime.”

It said the investigation “originated” with the FBI.

Because there isn’t a specific doping-related statute in U.S. law, federal prosecutors are apparently eyeing fraud and conspiracy charges, the Times reported.

This is, at best, legal gymnastics.

Moreover:

Imagine if the Russians, or the Chinese, or the French, pick anyone anywhere, decided to go after Americans: accusing U.S. athletes or their entourage or even American government officials of a crime under that particular nation's laws, basing the whole thing on allegations of sports-related doping.

What would the reaction be?

How is this any different?

The United States is not the world’s police officer nor, hardly, its prosecutor, judge and jury.

Who in the confines of some office in Brooklyn thought otherwise would serve any sort of American interest in our complicated, nuanced world?

News of the action from that U.S. Attorney’s office came as the International Olympic Committee announced Tuesday that re-tests of samples from the 2008 Beijing Games had turned up 31 positives, IOC president Thomas Bach calling it a “powerful strike against the cheats.”

Backing up for a moment:

You have to be a complete idiot to get caught doping at the Olympic Games. Everyone knows the authorities are going to be testing. And that samples get saved for years.

So there are two options here:

One, officials finally managed to get, say, some top-level Jamaicans or Kenyans. That would be a “powerful strike.”

Two, and more likely, if this cast of 31 was a Kevin Spacey movie, it would be the usual suspects. There are roughly 10,000 athletes at a Summer Games. Catching 31 means roughly 0.3 percent. Whoo.

Let’s be clear:

In this moment, the IOC is facing a potentially unprecedented onslaught of challenges: everything from Russian doping to the seemingly chaotic preparations for the Rio Games, from allegations of potential bribery involving Tokyo’s win for 2020 to the sudden resignation of Yang Ho Cho, the one guy in South Korea who had the 2018 Winter Games ship — finally — moving in the right direction.

IOC leadership has a bully pulpit. But no. It has been notably quiet when it could and should be aggressive in pursuit of resolution to all these challenges.

But that does not mean it is up to the United States to decide unilaterally that it is an American burden, taken on willingly, to address or fix even one of these problems.

The notion of American exceptionalism — that we are different because we are us — plays well domestically.

Internationally, not so much. Indeed, in the Olympic scene, you hear time and again that the rest of the world wants way, way less American exceptionalism. To that point, senior U.S. Olympic Committee leadership has spent the past six years preaching humility, asserting that the U.S. is just one of more than 200 nations in a global movement.

Apparently that message didn’t reach Brooklyn.

In retrospect, maybe it all makes so much more sense now, the failure of that New York bid for the Summer 2012 Games. All this dropping dead.

An American civics refresher: there are 94 U.S. attorney’s offices, one for each federal district. Federal prosecutors make for one of the most powerful arms of the entire United States government.

In Brooklyn, they implausibly decided the course of action ought to be more American exceptionalism.

Like, way more. Take that, everyone. Enjoy our investigation along with your freedom fries and newly relabeled “America” beer (née Budweiser).

A little more American civics background: the planning and execution of an American bid for a mega-event such as the Games or the World Cup involves different entities that are all part of the same branch of government, the executive: the FBI and DOJ, State, Treasury and more.

The head of the executive branch is the president himself.

President Obama has been, in many regards, an extraordinary executive. If the time in which we live is not always kind to Mr. Obama, history likely will be. At the same time, he might be the worst sports president since 1776. Ever since the day in October 2009 that Chicago got the boot for the 2016 Summer Games, won by Rio, the Obama Administration’s connection with international sports has been rich with one conflict after another.

And particularly with Russia.

It was just two-plus years ago, for instance, that the president opted in advance of the Sochi Games to make a political statement regarding Russia’s anti-gay laws by naming a U.S. delegation that was to be headed by the tennis star Billie Jean King and two other openly gay athletes. (King ultimately made it to the closing ceremony; she was unable to attend the opening ceremony because of her mother’s death.)

In nearly three years as IOC president, Bach has met with more than 100 heads of state. Obama? No, and not even last October, when a good chunk of the Olympic movement’s senior leadership descended on Washington, D.C., for the meeting of the Assn. of National Olympic Committees.

At that ANOC meeting, not one ranking Obama Administration official showed up — until the fourth day. Then came a surprise appearance from Vice President Joe Biden, the protocol equivalent of a drive-by.

During his brief stay on stage, all of seven minutes, the vice president called the Olympics the “single unifying principle in the world.”

Pretty hard to mesh that with an investigation out of Brooklyn into Russian dopers.

Indeed, there’s so much wrong with the idea that American federal prosecutors are investigating the possibility of laying criminal charges in this kind of matter that it is difficult to even know where to begin.

But here we go:

— There’s no law on point.

— On what theory does the United States claim virtually unlimited, worldwide jurisdiction?

It is incredibly unclear what nexus the United States might assert here to find jurisdiction. The banking system, as in the FIFA matter? That has always been tenuous.

— Let’s play hypothetical for just a moment. Assume the case yields indictments. How in the world are you going to get defendants into the United States, particularly if they’re in Russia? Get serious.

— The Times reported that the whistleblower in another story it broke a few days ago, about alleged misconduct at the Sochi 2014 lab, the director Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, is “among the people under scrutiny by the United States government.”

Let’s see: we want to encourage whistle-blowers to step up and report what they know. Rodchenkov, fleeing to the United States, does just that — only to become a focus of potential criminal inquiry by the feds?

It’s not hard to imagine this hypothetical: Rodchenkov applies for asylum. Such an application hinges on his “cooperation” with the DOJ, the feds in Brooklyn perhaps eager to squeeze him to be a key witness against others.

Rodchenkov already has a lawyer, the Times reported. And he said, “I have no choice. I am between two flames,” meaning the United States and Russian governments.

Also, this: Rodchenkov is living in Los Angeles. That is a long way from Brooklyn.

— Every case brought by federal prosecutors operates on two tracks: it plays out in court and, as well, in the court of public opinion. The resource of the FBI, DOJ and each U.S. Attorney is indeed significant but even that resource is finite. That means each and every prosecution has to be brought to prove a point. In essence, every single prosecution is distinguished, at some level, by notions of politics. This may not be the most popular point of view but it is indisputably true.

The Brooklyn office is the same office that is central to the FIFA case. That matter is a reach, jurisdictionally and otherwise.

This? Way more so.

And yet this is what law enforcement chooses to investigate? When surely the Eastern District of New York has more pressing issues? Like, say, shootings? Racially tinged housing issues? Antitrust matters? The list could go on and on.

— Why do U.S. taxpayers care for even a second if Russians are doping? What taxpayer interest might prosecutors be serving or protecting by going after sports dopers? None. Obviously. Otherwise Congress would have enacted a law saying something about the matter. That’s the way the American system works.

— Further:

Let’s say an American finished one position lower in x number of sports at the Games because of proven Russian doping. Would the outcome of a criminal case result in y number more medals for the United States? Or Italy? France? Mongolia? Wherever?

Take as just one of but many such examples the Olympic women’s 20-kilometer walk.

Olga Kaniskina of Russia won the event in Beijing in 2008 and crossed the line second in London in 2012. In March of this year, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Kaniskina ineligible from August 2009 until October 2012 because of anomalies in what’s called her “biological passport,” a reading of blood markers. Thus at issue: the London silver. Third place? Qieyang Shenjie of China. Fourth? Liu Hong, China. The top American finisher? Maria Michta, 29th.

The women’s 3k steeplechase from London? The first-place finisher, Yulia Zaripova of Russia, is expected to be DQ’d for doping. Second? Habib Ghribi of Tunisia. Third? Sofia Assefa, Ethiopia. Fourth? Micah Chemos Cheywa of Kenya. The top American? Emma Coburn, ninth.

London women’s discus: Russian silver medalist Darya Pishchalnikova tests positive for a steroid. Third place? Li Yanfeng of China. Fourth? Yarelys Barrios of Cuba. The best American? Stephanie Brown Trafton, the 2008 gold medalist, in eighth.

And so on.

— Is it the DOJ’s responsibility to protect Americans from watching bad sports? Hardly.

Joke: if so, maybe it should focus on the MLS.

— The DOJ has a proven record of achieving very little, if anything, after spending considerable taxpayer dollars when it comes to high-profile sports-related corruption or doping-related prosecutions.

The two figures at the center of Salt Lake City’s tainted bid for the 2002 Winter Games, Tom Welch and Dave Johnson? The case — 15 counts against each — was dropped, a federal judge saying it offended his “sense of justice,” adding, “Enough is enough.”

Roger Clemens? Acquitted of charges he obstructed and lied to Congress in denying he used performance-enhancing drugs.

Barry Bonds? Free as a big-headed bird after nearly 10 years of facing prosecution.

Then there’s the peculiar matter involving Lance Armstrong. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles spent nearly two years investigating allegations that Armstrong and his cycling teammates committed a variety of potential crimes via doping. A grand jury had even been convened. Then, in February 2012, the case mysteriously just — stopped. Over and done. No more.

For years, Armstrong denied doping. He said at the time the criminal case was dropped that he was “gratified,” adding, “It is the right decision and I commend them for reaching it.”

So strange, still. Eight months later, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released more than 1,000 pages of evidence against Armstrong. Three months after that, there was Armstrong with Oprah Winfrey, purportedly confessing all.

The addendum: the chief prosecutor of the LA office at the time, then-U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr., was confirmed in July 2014 as a federal judge. That's a lifetime job.

For those keeping score: the former chief prosecutor in the Brooklyn office, Loretta Lynch, is now attorney general of the United States.

Remember: politics attends virtually everything involving the U.S. attorney’s office, wherever, wherever and however.

— Finally, when did it become a key DOJ agenda item to make U.S. foreign policy?

The idea that federal prosecutors could be so narrow-minded as to not take into account the LA24 bid, or American soccer ambitions for 2026, seems like a classic case of one executive branch hand (prosecutors) not knowing what the waggling fingers on the other hand might be up to.

Or, more probably, not caring.

Simply put: this is likely to pose a huge challenge for the USOC, the LA24 committee and others in the sports movement.

The FIFA thing was already difficult enough to try to explain amid the complicated matrix that underpins any U.S. sports bid.

Beyond which, any number of IOC members are known post-9/11 to be wary of travel to the United States. No one from another country likes being treated like a potential terrorist upon arrival. Especially IOC members.

Any number of members are also cautious, if not more, when it comes to what they perceive as a Wild West-type American gun culture. Among their questions: is it really safe to go to a college campus when there are open-carry laws? What about an Olympics with so many people carrying so many guns?

Now this from Brooklyn, and what is sure to be the follow-on assertion by any number of members that they must fret about every credit-card receipt if any financial transaction credibly can provide a tie to the U.S. legal system.

If the easy answer to that is, hey, IOC members, don’t do anything wrong — sure.

The simple rejoinder: it’s the cities that have proven the much-larger problem in IOC bidding, not the members per se.

At any rate, that doesn’t answer the salient question, which is: in September, 2017, with Paris, Rome and Budapest in the field along with Los Angeles, which city is going to get a majority of IOC votes?

As a policy matter, securing an Olympic Games is a way better proposition than going after some Russians. Politically, economically, culturally and in virtually every other way: winning a Games is a better bet.

At one point, you know, even President Obama thought so. He put his prestige on the line for Chicago, his hometown. Nothing has been quite the same since.

Big-picture IOC thinking in this election year

Sir Craig Reedie, an International Olympic Committee vice-president, got the full red-carpet welcome Friday at Tokyo's Narita International Airport. Photographers happily caught Tokyo Gov. Naoki Inose introducing his wife, Yuriko, to Sir Craig. In another shot, Sir Craig was seen bounding along Narita's walkways with a bouquet of welcoming flowers, a perfect tableau to set the stage for the IOC evaluation commission's four-day inspection of Tokyo's plan to host the 2020 Games.

And so it begins again, another round of these evaluation visits. The IOC commission visits the other two cities in the 2020 race, Madrid and Istanbul, later this month.

Over the years, these inspections have become a defining tenet of Jacques Rogge's tenure as IOC president. In September, however, Rogge's 12 years in office come to a close; voting for his successor, along with balloting for the 2020 bid-city race, will take place at the IOC general assembly in Buenos Aires.

The question the shrewd contender to replace Rogge will ask in meetings around the world with fellow members this spring and summer is elemental: does this system do what it's supposed to do?

It’s time, in this, a pivotal year for the IOC, for big-picture thinking.

The IOC is poised now for a once-in-a-generation turn. The presidential campaign is just starting to take shape. That race is entwined with, among other dynamics, the 2020 bid-city campaign, the policy-making executive board’s recent move to drop wrestling from the 2020 program, a notion that the 70-year-old age-limit now in place for members ought to be reviewed and a persistent feeling among some number of members that IOC staff at headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, exerts a disproportionate influence in Olympic affairs.

At issue, fundamentally, is the role of the members of the International Olympic Committee. In these first years of the 21st century, what is their mandate?

This is the pivot around which the presidential race likely turns, as potential candidates such as Thomas Bach of Germany, Ser Miang Ng of Singapore, Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico and perhaps others, including C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei, weigh their options.

The mainstream press is often replete with stories of how being an IOC member has to be a cushy gig. The reality is that the actual "job" -- being an IOC member is, of course, a volunteer position -- is hugely limited.

In essence:

-- Every other year, members choose a host city for the Games, Summer or Winter. The vote is seven years out. In 2013, members will choose for 2020.

-- The year after an edition of the Games, Summer or Winter, they vote for which sports go on the program of the Games -- again, seven years from that vote.

-- They elect their fellow members to the policy-making executive board (15 positions) or vice-presidential spots (four).

The executive board typically meets in-person four times a year. The rest of the time, that leaves the staff to run the show, and advocates for Rogge's management style would say he and staff have professionalized the IOC in innumerable says.

That said, it almost inevitably has led to the persistent feeling of a shift in the balance of power toward headquarters in Lausanne and away from the members themselves.

That development now animates the presidential race.

Which leads back to the evaluation commission. And, in another example, the executive board's move Feb. 12 to cut wrestling from the 2020 Games.

The 50-point reform plan passed in late 1999 in response to the Salt Lake City corruption scandal took away one of the perks of membership, visits to cities bidding for the Games.

Was the goal of the ban to keep the members honest? Reality check: if you want, you can meet an IOC member anywhere in the world. Still.

The goal was to keep the cities honest.

Now: has the IOC achieved what it sought?

The answer has to come in three different parts.

Has there been another bid-related corruption scandal? No.

But has the cost of the bid-city process come down? Hardly. It is now routine for cities to spend $50 million or more on bids -- $75 or $80 million, maybe more, is not uncommon. Bluntly, there is no way, given that accounting systems in different parts of the world vary in transparency, to know how much every single bid cost.

Moreover, has the IOC actually gotten what it thought it was buying when it voted?

Just two examples:

Beijing 2008? It made history, yes. In bidding for the Games, the Chinese fixed the investment at $14 billion. It turned out to be $40 billion, probably more.

London 2012? A rousing success on many levels. But, again, a construction and infrastructure budget that ended up way high, at roughly $14 billion. That was nearly four times the estimate provided in London's 2005 bid book.

Though the world will be transfixed come September on whether the IOC picks Madrid, Istanbul or Tokyo, the back story is that last February, Rome – one of the world’s great capitals – bowed out of the 2020 race, saying it was too expensive to play. That is a huge warning sign.

And the IOC has for several cycles had trouble finding enough qualified Winter Games bids. Annecy, the 2018 French candidate, received only seven votes.

Rogge has been a vocal proponent of the system as it is now. With his term ending, however, perhaps the time has come to suggest a review – or at least for a presidential candidate to explore whether, in a broader context, the time is now to somehow more empower the members in the bid-city  process.

Because, obviously, the underlying principle of that process now is that the members can't be trusted not to take bribes if they go on fact-finding missions.

If you were a presidential candidate, would you say that principle empowered your fellow members, or not?

To reinstate member visits would certainly involve complex logistical and financial steps. For instance, would the cities pay? Or the IOC?

Are these issues, however, at least worth serious discussion? A winning bid is worth billions of dollars; visits by 100 members would run seven figures. There is a compelling argument that’s a worthwhile investment on all sides.

Compare that to the way it works now:

The evaluation commission, which itself costs significant money, prepares a report -- most members could not truthfully say they read it, word for word -- and the bid cities get to make presentations, with videos and speeches, to the full IOC. When you ask the members to make a decision on a project worth billions, is that a best-practices method?

Reporters are allowed to go on the evaluation visits. They get to read the evaluation report and watch the presentations. Yet the members have votes but reporters don’t. What’s the disconnect there?

Not to say that Rio de Janeiro still wouldn't have won in 2009 for 2016 but Chicago figures to have gotten more than 18 votes if there had been visits; to this day, how many members have seen the beauty and potential of the Chicago lakefront?

Sochi probably still would have won in 2007 for 2014 -- it had the best story -- but what would the members have thought if they had gone there and seen the palm trees by the Black Sea and then nothing but forest up in the mountains?

Moreover, the Sochi project – with capital costs budgeted at roughly $10 billion, in 2006 dollars, in the bid book -- is now north of $50 billion.

In Sochi, the Russians were starting from scratch. It's one thing to look at the bid file and see $10 billion, which is course a ton of money; it's quite another to be there, up in the Krasnaya Polyana, in the forbidding geography, and wonder just how much money and manpower it would take to make it into a Winter Olympic site.

Sometimes there really just is no substitute for seeing something with your own eyes.

As for wrestling – this time around, it was wrestling that got the executive board’s boot. Who's got next? Which Summer Games sport, or sports, will it be then?

Unless the system changes with the new president, the “core” is due to be reviewed every four years. That means the next call is after Rio, in 2017.

The 25 that are, right now, the “core” – nowhere is it written that come 2017 they will be the core again.

What that means is that – just to keep the focus on the Summer Games -- the sports are living, like zombies, in a state of permanent dread. (Swimming and track and field excepted. It’s not written that they are mainstays. But they are.)

What it also underscores is the process: The IOC program commission undertook a study. The executive board, acting on that study, voted on the “core.” It will vote again in May on which sports to present to the floor in September. So what are the members’ choices? Take it or leave it? Or risk raucous debate? Since one memorable session in Mexico City in 2002, such debate has not been the IOC way under the Rogge presidency.

No wonder there is already talk that a new president has to find a different way.

And one final thing. The 1999 reforms mandated that newer members have to give up their membership at age 70. In the 13-plus years since, what has been learned is that many sports officials don’t even get to be in position to become IOC members until their early 60s. By the time they then learn their way around, the rules say they have to leave.

Wouldn’t the smart presidential candidate push to raise that age limit to 75?

Indeed, wouldn’t the smart candidate simply be framing a platform all around with the notion of seeking to empower the members as much as possible?

Doesn’t that just make sense?

USOC: no for 2022, go (maybe) for 2024 or 2026

Earlier this year, the U.S. and International Olympic Committees resolved a longstanding dispute over certain broadcasting and marketing revenue shares. That almost immediately prompted speculation that the USOC would get back into the Olympic bid game. Cities across the American West -- Salt Lake City, Denver, Reno and Bozeman, Mont. -- expressed interest in playing host to the 2022 Winter Games. The IOC will select the 2022 site in 2015; a bid for a 2015 Games would be due in the fall of 2013.

The USOC board of directors on Tuesday, however, opted to slow things down, and in a big way, and in so doing it made not only the logical call but the absolute right call.

The board decided not to bid for 2022 but instead to explore the possibility of hosting either the 2024 Summer or 2026 Winter Games.

Translation: It opted to do the right thing, not the fast thing. There's no rush. So why rush?

The smart money here -- there are literally dozens of variables -- is that the working committee the board appointed Tuesday comes back with a push for 2024. The committee is due to make an initial report to the full USOC board in December.

Why Summer? The Winter Games are great but the Summer Games are always going to be the franchise, and the United States can win for 2024.

The IOC will select the Summer Games site in 2017. That's so far out the IOC doesn't even know now where it's going to be meeting in 2017 to be picking the 2024 city.

San Francisco and New York figure to top the list of candidate cities. Chicago will be mentioned again. Dallas is interested, too, but a June Games, which is what they're tentatively talking about down there, would seem to fall outside the IOC window.

San Francisco is a magical name to the Eurocentric IOC.

New York has the advantage of having run a 2005 bid for 2012.

Meanwhile, there doubtlessly will be talk about how South Africa will want to mount a bid for 2024. But that country has a long, long way to go, and all the IOC members who were there for the 2011 session in Durban know that to be the case. And, like those of us in the press, they remember well the warnings not to walk outside the perimeter of the guarded IOC hotel -- even in broad daylight -- for fear of violence.

Paris will be mentioned, too. Sure, 2024 will be the 100th anniversary of Paris' 1924 Games. Big deal. How'd that anniversary work out for Athens in 1896? They held the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

Beyond which, the French are in considerably the same place the Americans were several years ago -- trying to figure out, in the wake of the disastrous single-digit vote for Annecy's 2018 Winter Games campaign, why they keep losing cycle after cycle at the Olympic bid game.

The Americans have now figured it out. It's a relationship business.

And it takes time to build relationships.

That's why Tuesday's decision makes so much sense.

USOC board chairman Larry Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun have been traveling the world since the start of 2010, working at the relationship thing. Since the United States is not in the bid game, there's no pressure to ask for anything. They are simply trying to be good members of the so-called Olympic family.

The decision Tuesday gives them ample time to keep being just that.

It also allows time, too, for Probst to become an IOC member. That would be enormously helpful for an American bid.

There are other dominoes that need to fall into place. Domestically, for instance, more study needs to be done on the issue of the financial guarantee the IOC demands of host cities. In other countries, the federal government steps up for that guarantee; the nature of American federalism -- a city bids, supported by state and federal governments -- renders that super-complex.

Also, there are political matters at issue. To be candid, the next U.S. Olympic bid has to wait for a new president in the White House.

That didn't come up at Tuesday's USOC meeting. But it's very much the case.

President Obama traveled to Copenhagen in October, 2009, to push for his hometown, Chicago. He was the very first American president to put not only his personal prestige but that of the office on the line before the IOC.

The IOC then sent Chicago packing in the first round with a mere 18 votes.

There simply is no way the USOC can, or would, ask President Obama to appeal again to the IOC.

If he is re-elected -- of course that's a big if -- President Obama's term would end in January, 2017. The IOC vote for 2024 will come later that year.

Another thought:

It will be eight years between the Chicago vote and the 2024 vote; that's a lot of time and distance for feelings to be soothed.

A President Romney would, of course, change the equation considerably. Mitt Romney ran the Salt Lake 2002 organizing committee and he would be welcomed, indeed, at the IOC -- whether lobbying for a Winter or Summer Games.

But not for the notion of déjà vu all over again in Salt Lake City. Amid all the uncertainties ahead, one thing remains a solid bet:

The IOC is not going back to Salt Lake, not after the scandal that shook it in the late 1990s. Not in 2026. No way, no how.

Chicago 2016 - can a loss be a win?

CHICAGO -- Destyne Butler Jr. is a young boxer. As the intriguing new movie chronicling Chicago's unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Summer Games opens, the camera catches Destyne banging away in the gym and then saying, "It's all going to pay off in the long run, and I know I can make it." Maybe, in its way, that's the Chicago 2024 motto, too. Or Chicago 2028. Or Chicago 2032.

Not that anything like that, and for sure not a most unlikely 2020 bid, is the main point of the film.

It nonetheless remains an unavoidable subtext, and the documentary's recap of the 2016 race can't help but look ahead to what might be someday, with new takes from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and bid chief Pat Ryan, along with some logical thinking from U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Scott Blackmun.

Indeed, Ryan says at one point, "I believe Chicago should bid again."

But, again, that's not the central point. Instead, it's this: Can a loss nonetheless be a win?

No one likes losing, and losing was particularly difficult in the case of Chicago 2016 because it was indisputably the most complete Olympic bid ever put forward by the United States. It featured a great technical plan based along the city's lakefront enhanced by unprecedented business and political support.

President Obama made a personal appeal as part of Chicago's presentation to the International Olympic Committee last Oct. 2 in Copenhagen. Yet Chicago got bounced in the first round, with only 18 votes, Rio de Janeiro winning in a landslide. "Shocked. I really was. Never anticipated it," Ryan says of the first-round exit.

It would be easy, of course, to make a documentary about a winning Olympic bid. The 44-minute Chicago film, produced by Mark Mitten, written and directed by Mitten and Jim Schmidt and due to air Saturday on Chicago's NBC affiliate, the one-year anniversary of the 2016 vote, is believed to be one of the very few on a losing campaign. It might even be a first -- insiders from losing bids generally not eager to re-visit that sort of thing on film. (Disclosure: I was among those interviewed for the movie. No idea if I made the final cut.)

The documentary -- here's a clip -- skirts the many controversies involving the IOC's complex relationship with the USOC that are widely believed to have played a key role in sinking Chicago's aspirations.

It's not that Mitten and Schmidt don't know about the controversies. Mitten was the bid's chief brand officer; he and Schmidt, a principal at Downtown Partners Chicago, worked on all the bid's campaign films. Some critics may thus declare the film, entitled Making Big Plans: The Story of Chicago's Olympic Dream, guilty of omission.

At the same time, it's not clear that much -- if anything -- would be gained by rehashing those conflicts, in particular the USOC's plan to launch its own television network. The USOC made that announcement in the summer of 2009 over ferocious IOC objections; ultimately, the USOC abandoned the project.

Besides, the film's focus is elsewhere:

"Chicago didn’t lose," Ryan says. "Rio won.  But Chicago won in so many ways."

If some will be tempted to say that's self-serving or just so much rationalization, consider:

The Chicago bid generated undeniable civic spirit; it positioned Chicago on the world stage; it also produced significant partnerships and real-world job and other benefits.

One example: The 2016 Fund for Chicago Neighborhoods, for example, used $2 million left over from the bid to attract $18 million in federal matching funds for job-training programs in South Side neighborhoods. Some 2,200 people stand to benefit.

Another: The bid branded Chicago, previously known around the world perhaps for Al Capone or Michael Jordan, in ways that arguably nothing else could. "We put Chicago on the global map, with all the publicity and all the competition -- it was worth it," Daley says.

If one day there is another Chicago bid, it will be under the direction of another mayor. Daley recently announced plans to leave office.

Ryan has made clear, too, that while he would be happy to advise and support another bid, someone else will be in charge.

As things stand now, there are only three cities in the United States that can legitimately aim to mount and then win a Summer Games bid: Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. The USOC has made it abundantly plain that no American bid will even be considered until a longstanding dispute with the IOC over the USOC's shares of broadcasting and marketing revenues is resolved.

There's no timetable for getting that done. So any bid talk  has to be considered hypothetical.

"If and when we do want to reconsider a bid, we are definitely going to want to be in a dialogue with the people of Chicago – a combination of the great leadership that they were able to put together, the great plan," Blackmun, who has been chief executive since January and played no part in the 2009 campaign, says in the movie, adding, "I think we definitely want to revisit that with Chicago at some point in the future."

Again, and for emphasis: Blackmun was not endorsing Chicago and he was not slyly suggesting the Americans are up to something for 2020. He was speaking in the hypothetical.

The film does, however, give voice to the obvious question:

"Should we bid again?" asks Scott Myers, the executive director of World Sport Chicago, another legacy of the bid, its youth sport-oriented organization.

"I think we should bid again," Bill Scherr, World Sport Chicago's president, answers.

"Chicago should bid again," Phil Enquist, an architect and key 2016 Games planner, says.

Lori Healey, the Chicago 2016 president, says, "Never say never, right?"

Ryan says the bid team "put our bid plan in a time capsule and it's there to be taken out by a future mayor and business community and community leaders. And it will be very timely because what was great about our bid was the physical beauty and lakefront and parks of the city, and that’s not going away.

"So when there is another bid, it will cost far less than our bid cost. And it could be eight years, 12 years, 16 years."

He also says, "The Olympic bid -- it was a great, great thing for Chicago," adding, "Some day Chicago will host the Olympics."

Maybe. It's like Destyne Butler Jr. also says: "I want to make history."