Bach's very busy first IOC EB

LAUSANNE, Switzerland --Russian organizers will set up protest zones in Sochi, the new International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach said here Tuesday. Whether they will work, or anyone will have the courage to want to step into them amid what is expected to be a ferocious security presence, remain very much an open question. The IOC president took the high road:  "It's a measure we welcome," Bach said of the protest area, "so that everybody can express his or her free opinion."

With an emphasis on such immediate challenges and even a nod to ceremony, the first executive board meeting of Bach's IOC presidency commenced here Tuesday and then, no surprise, broke up after a few short hours, the focus on Sochi, on the Rio 2016 project and even on a long-term plan that Bach has taken to calling "Olympic Agenda 2020."

The former president, Jacques Rogge, handed over the keys to the presidential office at the IOC's lakefront headquarters, the Chateau de Vidy. Later Tuesday, the Olympic Museum, just down the road along the lake, was officially re-inaugurated.

But, first and foremost, Sochi.

The 2014 Winter Games are now just 59 days away. A host of other pressing near-term issues loom large on the agenda.

Despite the massive security presence due in and around the Sochi venues, activists purportedly now will be free to protest, for instance, the Russian law that purports to ban "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” to those under 18.

In August, Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree banning "gatherings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets" for 2 1/2 months in Sochi around the Olympics and Paralympics. It is due to go into effect on Jan. 7. The Games start Feb. 7.

Bach said Sochi 2014 organizers informed the IOC of the decision to set up protest zones during their report to the board on Tuesday.

As a point of comparison: protest zones in Beijing in 2008, miles away from Olympic venues, largely went unused. Bach said he was unsure where the 2014 protest site is to be located.

Without making explicit reference to the gay controversy, Bach noted that IOC rules about what athletes can -- and can not -- do and say under the Olympic charter are going to be sent out shortly to the more than 200 national Olympic committees. Rule 50 bars political statements within Olympic venues. Rule 40, moreover, limits what athletes can do in regard to individual sponsorships. "They," meaning the rules, "are there to protect themselves," meaning the athletes, Bach said.

Bach noted that there is "still a lot to do" in Sochi "with regard to infrastructure, accommodation and other issues." Even so, he said, the IOC remains "very confident" that "everything will be in place and we will have really an excellent stage for the best athletes of the world."

The Rio 2016 Games, widely seen in Olympic circles as an "adventure," have already drawn the new president's sharp attention. He said he plans to travel to Brazil -- before Feb. 7, and Sochi gets going -- to meet with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and other officials. And after Sochi, the "top priority" of Gilbert Felli, the outgoing Games' executive director, will be Rio, Bach said, a recognition -- if not admission -- the project needs special attention. Even though Felli is formally retiring as of Aug. 31, he will continue long after to "work closely" with Rio organizers, Bach said.

"We have to realize, and also the organizing committee has realized, there is not a single moment to lose," Bach said. "Every effort has to be made, every single day, to bring the construction of Olympic sites and infrastructure forward."

Beyond all that, there already is in the works the makings of a long-term strategic plan. This is what Bach has taken to calling "Olympic Agenda 2020."

Indeed, the executive board -- after holding the briefest of meetings Tuesday morning with the Assn. of National Olympic Committees and then convening itself for the rest of the day -- is now due to head off for a four-day retreat up Lake Geneva in Montreux, better known as the site of the famous summer jazz festival, for a think session to sketch out Olympic Agenda 2020.

Everything -- for emphasis, everything -- not only should be but appears to be on the table.

As Bach has described it, this "brainstorming meeting" essentially breaks down into four categories:

One, sustainability. This includes everything from bidding for the Games to the 28-sport limit at the Summer Olympics to the management of the Games to "legacy," or what to do with Olympic venues post-Games to avoid so-called "white elephants" like the stadiums in Athens or Beijing.

Also: should the members be allowed again to the visit cities bidding for the Olympics? Should baseball and softball be allowed into the Tokyo 2020 Games? How, broadly speaking, to jazz up the program? Should tug-of-war be allowed in as a sport? Skateboarding? Surfing?

Two, credibility. This revolves around issues such as doping and match-fixing as well as issues of autonomy and governance.

Three, youth and the Youth Games. As Bach said, the notion here is how to " get the couch potatoes off the couch." What if the Youth Games, which came to life under Rogge, were used as a laboratory, just to see what worked and, perhaps, more intriguingly, what didn't? Above all, the IOC's No. 1 challenge is to remain relevant with young people.

Four, the structure of the IOC itself. Here, there are bound to be discussions revisiting some of the reforms that were enacted in 1999 amid the Salt Lake City scandal -- such as, for instance, the rule that now forces IOC members out at age 70 (it used to be 80). Fourteen years after that rule came into effect, there appears to be widespread consensus that 70 is too soon, that considerable talent and networking is being forced out in a world where being 70 is not necessarily old anymore.

This big-picture think is, frankly, long overdue. Every organization ought to go through something like it periodically. For the IOC, the change in the presidency is the natural time.

Bach has cautioned that the Montreux retreat is not designed to and will not produce decisions. There may be a new president but, as ever, the IOC moves at a deliberate pace.

In this instance, that makes sense. There are stakeholders of all sorts to consult. At the outset of his presidency, Bach enjoys considerable goodwill. Even so, he will want time to pursue that buy-in.

The timetable:

December 2013 -- Montreux retreat.

February 2014 -- Sochi session.

Fourth quarter 2014 -- probable extraordinary session, somewhere, to review and presumably enact Olympic Agenda 2020. "I hope we will need one," Bach said.

The other advantage of this Montreux retreat, of course, is that while it can be assumed, politically, that the 14 others on the board are with the new president, the four days together will give him the chance to see who is all the more with him.

These next few days and weeks also will give everyone the chance to see -- with the elections in Sochi coming right up, by a quirk of the IOC calendar -- who is vying for authority in Bach's early years.

If, for instance, Zaiqing Yu of China isn't a candidate for the IOC vice-presidency, that would by most accounts be a surprise.

Similarly, if Turkey's Ugur Erdener doesn't run for the board, that would be unusual. Same goes for Canada's Dick Pound, who lost out by a mere one vote in Buenos Aires in September.

In just under two months, it's Sochi. Now, though, it's off to Montreux. No press allowed. No outsiders.

"I'm really looking forward to a brainstorming meeting in Montreux," Bach said. "Don't expect any kind of decisions from this meeting. It will be brainstorming."

Remembering Nelson Mandela

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The Olympic Games produce moments. Those moments become memories. Those memories inspire the hopes and dreams of generations. At the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games, Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia would win the women's 10,000-meter run, the first black African female gold medalist in Olympic history. After Tulu crossed the finish line, it took Elana Meyer, a white South African, almost six seconds more to get there. A few more steps past the finish line, Mayer found Tulu. They kissed. Then, hand-in-hand, they ran together, black and white, first and second, yes, but equals in sport and spirit, symbols of hope and possibility for South Africa, for all of Africa, indeed the world.

Because of its apartheid policies, South Africa had been banished from the Olympics after the Rome 1960 Games. Barcelona 1992 marked its return to the world stage. Those Olympics took place about two and a half years after Nelson Mandela's release from prison.

Mandela was then 74. In the hours before the South African team would march in the opening ceremony, he arrived in the Olympic Village to speak to the team. This, as a Sports Illustrated story reported, is what he said:

"All I want to say is that our presence here is of great significance to our country, a significance which goes beyond the boundaries of sport. Our country has been isolated for many years, not only in sports but in other fields as well. We are saying now, 'Let's forget the past. Let bygones be bygones.' I want to tell you that we respect you, we are proud of all of you and, above all, we love you."

Mandela died Thursday at 95, an icon of hope and possibility. In sport he often saw a pathway toward reconciliation.

The president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, said Friday the Olympic movement would be mourning a "great friend and a hero of humanity."

Bach, before a meeting at IOC headquarters along Lake Geneva, recounted how he met Mandela. In telling the story the IOC president paused to collect his emotions:

It was a private gathering several years ago, Bach said, and so he could ask Mandela the question he had always wanted to ask:

"You invited to your [May, 1994, presidential] inauguration even the worst from Robben Island. Don't you feel hate?"

Bach went on:

"His immediately response was no."

The IOC president said:

"I think he saw the doubt in my eyes," the kind that says, "You don't believe."

Bach continued:

"I said, 'Mr. President, this is really hard to believe after all you have been suffering."

"He said, 'I can tell you why.'

"I said, 'Why, Mr. President?'

"He said a sentence which still gives me goosebumps today. I will never forget it. He said, 'Because if I hate, I would not be a free man.' "

Usain Bolt's tweets since the announcement of Mandela's death included these:

"Just here thinking that Mr.Mandela in prison for 27 years is how long I'v been alive..Words are inadequate to describe this man #RIPMandela"

And: "One of the greatest human beings ever..May your soul rest in peace..The worlds greatest fighter."

In sport Mandela could see beyond fight. He was often quoted as saying, "Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair."

Sam Ramsamy, now South Africa's IOC member, also at the meeting Friday in Lausanne, read those words once more to a hushed audience. At that inauguration 19 years ago, Ramsamy recalled, he had the honor of being the first to say aloud, "President Nelson Mandela."

Australian IOC member R. Kevan Gosper, at the Lausanne meeting as well, played a key role in bringing South Africa back into the Games. He, like Ramsamy, returned time and again Friday to Mandela's emphasis on sport as a vessel for potential and for change. And, like Bach, to the elemental humanity of Mandela himself.

In 1995, just a year after he took office, South Africa defeated New Zealand in the final of the rugby World Cup. The Springboks, as the team is known, had long been the favored sport of South Africa's white minority; for many blacks, the team -- and the mascot -- had become symbols of oppression. In the scene commemorated in the movie "Invictus," Mandela famously handed the championship trophy to the Springboks' white captain, Francois Piennar, while wearing a green jersey emblazoned with Pienaar's No. 6.

Since those years, of course, South Africa has become an even more important player in world sport. It played host to the 2010 soccer World Cup. There is talk of a bid for the 2024 or 2028 Summer Games.

To be sure, sport can not -- will not -- itself solve any nation's problems, and it will not solve South Africa's. It is nearly 20 years after Mandela's inauguration, and the country faces a range of serious challenges, including high unemployment, AIDS cases and a culture of violence. The amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who at the London 2012 Games emerged as South Africa's most celebrated sports figure, is now facing murder charges in the shooting death of his girlfriend.

Even so, as Bach on Friday ordered the Olympic flags to be lowered to half-mast for three days and Ramsamy conveyed formal IOC condolences to current South African president Jacob Zuma, there was in the remembrance of Nelson Mandela not just gratitude but a sense of bearing witness to what, with the strength of human will, could be made possible.

Sebastian Coe, the Olympic running champion who served as London 2012 chairman, now head of the British Olympic Assn., said in a statement that Mandela "recognized the unique power of sport to unite people from every walk of life."

Coe added, "The values that are at the heart of sport -- equality, opportunity and mutual understanding -- are the very same values Nelson Mandela fought to instill and uphold. He lived his life with courage and conviction, and as we mourn his passing we are grateful for the unending inspiration he has given us all."

The chairman of the International Rugby Board, Bernard Lapasset, said,  "Mr. Mandela was a truly remarkable man. I was honored to be with him during the historic days of Rugby World Cup 1995 and saw his incredible impact on his nation and his people. HIs wisdom, intelligence and sheer presence was a wonder to behold.

"I am so proud that the rugby family could play its small part in supporting Mr. Mandela's efforts to establish the new South Africa and that our tournament came to symbolize the emergence of a new nation. He changed the world and we were privileged to witness and embrace his work."

On Saturday, the IRB announced, a moment of silence will be observed at the Rugby Sevens World Series event at Port Elizabeth, South Africa. That afternoon, all 16 teams are due to join together on the playing field, wearing black armbands as a tribute.

Of course, Ramsamy said, this was a time to mourn. But, he said, also the moment when the memory of Mandela not only could but should provoke an awareness of the good -- the genuine good, as Mandela understood -- that sport can play in our broken world.

In 1995, for instance, Mandela said in a speech, "South Africa remembers with pride the magnanimity in defeat which Elana Meyer demonstrated in Barcelona, when she proclaimed with her vanquisher the sanctity of the Olympic principle that participation is more important than winning."

Bach and Ramsamy have known each other for many years. Yes, Bach said: "As Mr. Ramsamy said, we have to celebrate life. This is the direction Mr. Mandela would have given us, to celebrate life and look into the future."

Big problem: no Munich 2022

What is wrong with this picture? Vienna: no.

Rome: no.

Munich: no.

Even Switzerland, home of the International Olympic Committee: no.

The IOC has a huge disconnect on its hands. At issue, right or wrong, fair or not, may well be the IOC itself. Now: will the IOC recognize this disconnect, and be willing to do something about it?

In the afterglow of arguably the greatest Summer Games ever, London's 2012 Olympics, taxpayers in western Europe -- the IOC's base -- have now shot down three separate Games bids before they even got started, the latest Munich's presumptive 2022 Winter Games campaign, killed Sunday by Bavarian voters.

This past March, voters in Austria rejected a Vienna 2028 plan. Innsbruck just put on the 2012 Winter Youth Games; it staged the 1976 and 1964 Winter Games. And Salzburg bid for the 2014 and 2010 Winter Games.

Just days before the Vienna balloting, Swiss voters in the canton that is home to the ski resorts of St. Moritz and Davos rejected a 2022 bid proposal. St. Moritz staged the Winter Games in 1928 and 1948.

In February 2012, meanwhile, the then-prime minister of Italy, Mario Monti, called off Rome's 2020 bid, though it was already well underway. Rome put on the 1960 Summer Games.

Monti pulled Rome out because of uncertain costs associated with the project.

That's always an issue. Environmental concerns are a factor, too. But now there seems to be something more at work,  the reputation of the IOC itself.

Munich had bid for 2018, won by Pyeonchang, South Korea. Since then, of course Thomas Bach, who played a key role in the 2018 bid, has become the IOC president, and a 2022 Munich bid would have been the presumptive favorite, Munich seeking to become the first city to stage the Summer (1972) and Winter Games.

The mountain resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, about an hour south of Munich, where some of the 2022 events would have been staged, played host to the 1936 Winter Games.

The bid needed to win elections in four communities were the Games would have been held. Instead, the campaign lost in all four, some badly.

Here is the money quote from Sunday's vote, from Ludwig Hartmann, a Greens Party lawmaker and a leader of the movement, called "NOlympia," that led the opposition to Munich 2022: "The vote is not a signal against the sport but against the non-transparency and the greed for profit of the IOC."

If you are tempted to dismiss the Greens as a fringe party, fine. But when a leading German newspaper like Süddeutschen Zeitung, the day before the vote, runs a column that compares the IOC to both the mafia and the "North Korean regime" -- if you are the IOC, you've got issues.

Fifteen years after the Salt Lake City scandal shook the IOC to its core, the organization has -- this is the truth -- undergone significant reforms. Juan Antonio Samaranch lived to see those reforms effected. Jacques Rogge carried them out.

After having written about the IOC full-time since nearly the day the scandal erupted, it is clearly the case that the overwhelming majority of those who are members now believe -- and wholeheartedly -- in its mission. They give outrageously of their time. Their commitment is profound, indeed.

And yet -- how is it that the image of the IOC can conjure such comparisons? A crime syndicate? A rogue state?

"We proved long ago, when I was with Meridian, the IOC's marketing agency, that consumers around the world love the Games and the Olympic brand. That is irrefutable," Atlanta-based Terrence Burns, now the managing director at Teneo Sports, said.

"We also conducted research about the IOC itself -- as an organization. The results of that were not so glowing …

"The IOC has an image problem -- fair or unfair, real or imagined -- it does not matter."

Just last weekend, Bach chaired a "summit" at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, with more than a dozen senior Olympic officials from around the world. Afterward, the IOC issued a statement in which the new president's agenda, ratified by those in attendance, was made crystal-clear.

The statement identified the "main topics of interest and concern" confronting the movement as these: the campaigns against doping and match-fixing, regulation of the sports calendar, autonomy of the sports movement and, finally, governance issues.

What's missing from that list is elemental. It's what Sunday's rejection by Bavarian voters underscores, and this is way beyond any potential reflection of the vote on Bach, because this is about way more than one individual.

The entire Olympic enterprise is hugely expensive. It depends on cities and countries wanting in.

In our world now, there will always be emerging countries with lots of money -- and the corollary, some measure of risk, possibly significant -- ready and willing to stand up and say, we want the Games.

Is a trend that produces mostly such countries for any given bid cycle in the best interest of the Olympic movement?

If the perception of the IOC in developed nations makes for a bid disincentive, or worse, isn't it thoroughly obvious that the IOC should be doing something about that? Some basic brand management? Some fundamental story-telling about what the IOC itself does?

Munich's defeat, for instance, could well mean no German bid for many years to come. Berlin, which played host to a tremendously successful 2009 world track and field championships, was thought by many to be a viable Summer Games contender.

Michael Vesper, director general of the German Olympic Sports Confederation, which goes by the acronym DOSB, said the rejection of Munich 2022 "clearly means that another Olympic bid in Germany won't be possible for a long time."

Burns, the former president and founder of Helios Partners, served on the winning Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 bids. He also managed golf's entry to the Olympic program and wrestling's return, and said of the IOC:

"This is an organization that does incredible good in the world, every day on every continent around the world, and no one knows about it. The IOC, for its own reasons, has mistakenly chosen to let the Games themselves be the arbiter of its image. In the consumers' minds, the Games do not equal the IOC in terms of appeal and affection. They are two different things."

The deadline for entering for 2022 is Thursday. Already declared: Oslo; Lviv, Ukraine; Beijing/Zhangjiakou; Almaty, Kazakhstan; and a joint bid from Krakow, Poland, and the nearby mountains of Slovakia. Stockholm is still thinking about it. The IOC will pick the 2022 site in 2015.

The 2018 race produced only three candidates: Pyeongchang, Munich and Annecy, France.

Some will review the early list of 2022 contenders and see a welcome uptick in the number of bids.

Reality check: the IOC is heading to Sochi for 2014 and Rio de Janeiro for 2016, and just awarded Tokyo 2020 with more than one member making it clear amid the 2020 vote, "No more experiments."

Look at the 2022 list again, and Oslo would appear to be your early front-runner. Norway has staged two Winter Games before, in Oslo in 1952 and Lillehammer in 1994. It has a huge offshore oil sector and so it likely can afford the Games, the Oslo 2022 budget already pegged at $5 billion.

But -- what kind of front-runner?

In September, only 55 percent of Oslo voters supported the bid in a city-wide referendum.

To be candid, 55 percent is not a happy welcome mat. Then again, that's better than pre-vote polls had suggested: a survey in the Norwegian daily Aftenposten had put support at 38 percent with 47 percent saying they would vote no, the remaining 15 percent undecided.

"I think that what just happened in Munich," Burns said, "was not a rejection of the idea of hosting the Winter Games, it was a rejection of the IOC itself. That's troubling to me personally because as an insider I have seen what goes on behind the curtain for almost 20 years, and I can tell you the IOC works hard, very hard, on behalf of sport. But no one knows about it.

"Think about it this way:

"Munich, or Rome, had an opportunity to truly make a powerful, positive statement to the world about sport and humanity, frankly on their own terms given the IOC's relatively hands-off approach -- e.g., Sochi -- and they took a pass. How many great cities can the IOC afford to 'take a pass'?

"Isn't it of value to the IOC to have a Munich or a Rome hosting the Games instead of somewhere you've never heard of? There is a mutually beneficial brand transition that takes place and London is a great example -- both the IOC and London greatly benefitted from each other's brand. But London bid for the Games [starting] in 2003 and won in 2005. Would they bid today? Could they?"

At the UN: the Bach Doctrine

The recently elected president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, delivered a remarkable speech Wednesday to the United Nations Assembly, a signal declaration of the role of the IOC and what it can and can't do to effect social and political change in these early years of the 21st century. In essence, he laid out what future Olympic historians might well call the Bach Doctrine -- at least as it relates to the complex and never-ending interplay between sport, government and politics.

Here was a clearly defined and articulated vision of the roles of both sport and political entities. Sometimes, as in the endorsement of the Olympic Truce, as the UN did Wednesday, or to promote certain sports projects in a conflict zone, it works to work together. Other times -- when, for instance, it comes to changing the laws of a particular country -- that's beyond the IOC mandate.

"The IOC is above all a sports organization," Bach said. "Sport is our first priority."

That is the key, and Bach's address ought to serve as mandatory reading for activists anywhere in the world seeking to ride the Olympic rings to advance their own interests, particularly when such activists wonder why the IOC can't or seemingly won't do more.

The IOC is not, for emphasis, itself a government. It is "above all a sports organization."

Later in the speech, Bach said, "Of course, we know that, as in ancient Greece, sport and the Olympic Games can not on their own solve political problems or achieve peace.

"Peace-building is a long process. Sport wants to be a part of this process. However, we are aware of our limits -- but we want to use the power of our values and symbols to promote the positive, peaceful development of global society.

"These symbols, and especially the peaceful competition at the Olympic Games, should inspire all the people."

Bach's address was notable not only for what was said but the timing of his remarks.

Bach was elected IOC president Sept. 10, not even two months ago. His comments Wednesday can leave no mistake: he is not gently feeling his way about the office but rather seizing the pulpit that comes with it to lay out his agenda.

The UN has endorsed the notion of an Olympic Truce before each edition of the Games dating to 1994. In acting Wednesday, the assembly urged its 193 member states to respect the "values of the Olympic truce around the world" even as it agreed to cooperate with the IOC and International Paralympic Committee to use sport "as a tool to promote peace, dialogue and reconciliation in areas of conflict during and beyond" the 2014 Sochi Games. They are set to run Feb. 7-23.

It was in the context of the truce resolution that Bach delivered his remarks.

Bach's comments, of course come amid the ongoing controversy stemming from the Russian law enacted over the summer that purports to keep homosexual "propaganda" from children.

Bach did not pound his fists on any lectern and declare, for instance, that the Russian law must change. Why would he? Two weeks ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin told Bach, "We will do everything to make sure that athletes, fans and guests feel comfortable at the Olympic Games regardless of their ethnicity, race or sexual orientation. I would like to underline that."

This, then, is what Bach said Wednesday: "Sport stands for dialogue and understanding which transcend all differences. Sport, and the Olympic movement especially, understands the global diversity of cultures, societies and life designs as a source of richness. We never accuse or exclude anyone."

He also said that it "must always be clear in the relationship between sport and politics that the role of sport is always to build bridges," adding, "It is never to build walls."

Woven throughout Bach's address were references to what in Olympic jargon is called "autonomy."

It stands as a significant Bach priority, as the new president made plain after calling a "summit" Sunday at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, with more than a dozen senior Olympic officials from around the world.

Along with the campaign against doping, for instance, the summit detailed "autonomy" as one of the IOC's pressing prerogatives.

In most nations -- the United States is a significant outlier -- responsibility for the national Olympic committee runs through a branch of the federal government. There's thus inherent potential for interference from that government, or from politicians at federal, state or local levels.

The IOC wants "autonomy." It recognizes that the 204 national Olympic committees need to be funded; again, the U.S Olympic Committee, by act of Congress, has to fund itself. At the same time the IOC wants those NOCs -- and their local governing bodies -- to enjoy the authority to pursue sports-related decisions as sports officials see fit.

Similarly, the IOC wants international sports federations to be free of governmental interference.

In real life, this can sometimes create a delicate balance.

At the UN on Wednesday, Bach turned philosophical in explaining why the IOC believes the pursuit of "autonomy" to be so vital:

Sport, he said, is the "only area of human existence" that has achieved what in political philosophy is known as "universal law" and in moral philosophy as a "global ethic."

For instance, anywhere in the world that you want to put on a soccer game, the rules are the same.

Those rules are based on the same common "global ethic" of fair play, tolerance and friendship, he asserted.

But to extend this "universal law" to all four corners of the globe, he said, "sport has to enjoy responsible autonomy," adding, "Politics must respect this sporting autonomy."

Only then, Bach said, can sport retain its great potential to inspire amid all the "differing laws, customs and traditions" in the world.

In exchange, Bach said, it's entirely reasonable to expect that sports officials will exercise such autonomy "responsibly" and in accord "with the rules of good governance."

At this juncture, Bach took on squarely the notion -- often put out there -- that sports and politics do not mix.

In exercising autonomy, the sports movement must remain politically neutral, he said. But this did not mean being "apolitical."

He said, "Sport must include political considerations in its decisions. It must consider the political, economic and social implications of its decisions," and particularly when the IOC chooses the site of the Winter and Summer Games, the bid process fraught with politics.

"In the mutual interest of both sport and politics," Bach said, "please help to protect and strengthen the autonomy of sport."

Please, the new IOC president said: "I ask you all to take this message back to your countries."

A stealth Olympic summit

The International Olympic Committee held something of a stealth meeting of key power-brokers Sunday at its lakefront headquarters in  Lausanne, Switzerland, a move that illuminates the who's who and what's what behind the developing agenda of the recently elected president, Germany's Thomas Bach. Bach convened the meeting, not widely publicized beforehand and in an IOC release termed an "Olympic Summit," to address "the main topics of interest and concern" confronting the movement.

These the statement identified as the campaigns against doping and match-fixing, regulation of the sports calendar, autonomy of the sports movement and, finally, governance issues.

Here, then, is a catalogue of how the new president intends to operate, his key list of action items and, perhaps most fascinatingly, a collection of advisers -- a kitchen cabinet, if you will -- that the release identified as "the senior representatives of the Olympic Movement's key stakeholders."

Like any list, it's not just who is on it but who is not that makes for the tell.

Among those who were there:

The three IOC vice presidents: Craig Reedie of Great Britain; Nawal el Moutawakel of Morocco; John Coates of Australia.

Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah of Kuwait, of course. Marius Vizer, the International Judo Federation and Sport Accord president, naturally. Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president. C.K. Wu, the head of the international boxing federation.

In May, the aquatics and gymnastics federations were elevated to the top tier of Olympic revenues, joining the track and field federation, the IAAF. The IAAF president, Lamine Diack of Senegal, was there Sunday; so was Julio Maglione of Urugay, president of FINA, the aquatics federation. The gymnastics federation president, Italy's Bruno Grandi? No.

The entire winter sports scene was represented solely by René Fasel, president of both the ice hockey and winter sports federations.

More: the heads of the national Olympic committees of the United States, China and Russia were invited to the meeting. But -- not France. Hello, Paris 2024?

Beyond that, the important take-aways from the meeting are these:

Reasonable people can quibble with the notion of whether doping, match-fixing, the calendar, autonomy and governance make for the spectrum of pressing issues facing the movement.

The new president, for instance, is keenly aware that the Olympic Games are the IOC's franchise and that keeping the franchise relevant to young people has to be the IOC's No. 1 priority. Nowhere on that list, moreover, is an exploration of the values central to the Olympic movement and how they might, should or do play out in today's world.

The president "invited the participants to share their ideas on these subjects," and a wide range of others, "and to be part of the permanent dialogue and ongoing reflection that the IOC wishes to increase with its main stakeholders," according to the release.

Bach is super-smart. He understands concepts such as "relevance" and "values." For sure.

But the action-item catalogue clearly and unequivocally demonstrates -- as Bach suggested during the presidential campaign, which ended with his election Sept. 10 in Buenos Aires -- that his focus is in problem-solving.

That means: solving the problems, or at least trying to, that are there, directly and identifiably, in front of him and the IOC.

Look at what the release says:

-- The IOC will set up a task force to coordinate efforts against match-fixing and illegal betting.

-- The participants agreed to set up an "experts' network" that will focus on issues of autonomy and governance.

-- The IOC will set up a "consultative working group" to deal with the calendar.

This calendar group, and it should be highlighted that this panel will be "under the leadership of the IOC," obviously has two unspoken priorities:

One, for those thinking long-range, is the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and whether -- as FIFA has been mulling, or not -- it can or should be moved to the winter. Such a move could well be problematic for a 2022 Winter Olympics. The IOC statement Sunday noted that the working group will discuss "the priority of current and future sports events within the global calendar."

Two, there's Vizer's suggestion, made when he was running last spring for SportAccord president, for a "Unified World Championships" that would feature 90-plus sports all going on at the same time. The group Sunday, Vizer included, the IOC statement said, agreed that "any new initiative has to respect the uniqueness of the Olympic Games."

Then there is the campaign against doping.

The release affirms the movement's "zero-tolerance" policy against drug cheats and backs the IOC's candidate for the presidency of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Reedie, who is expected to be affirmed at a meeting this month in South Africa. At the same time, it calls for WADA to become more of a "service organization," reflecting tensions with some international sports federations, who have suggested that the agency has been telling them what to do instead of serving their needs.

Whether this proves, in the long run, to actually be a good thing or not, and whether it actually gets played out, particularly with such real-world challenges such as the testing of Jamaican and Kenyan athletes now making headlines, remains to be seen.

Reedie, it should be noted, has consistently proven himself to be a shrewd player in sports politics across many constellations.

In the near term, meanwhile, all this shows conclusively that Bach is not only consolidating but demonstrating his own authority while simultaneously showing if not a bent, then at least a nod, toward collaboration.

It's of course absolutely a good thing that Bach seek the input of key constituent groups. In about a month, he will lead not only an executive board meeting in Lausanne but immediately afterward an EB retreat. Of course, how the EB and this new kitchen cabinet will mesh -- there is some overlap -- remains to be seen.

At the same time, as Jacques Rogge before him and Juan Antonio Samaranch before that proved, while the IOC is something of a democracy, the institution has traditionally functioned best when the president demonstrates a clear and decisive hand.

It took Rogge some time to figure this out. He made a show at the beginning of his first term of wanting the IOC to be far more democratic. The 2002 Mexico City session, which devolved into hours upon hours of democracy -- the members voicing all manner of opinion about baseball, softball and modern pentathlon, and their roles in the program, with nothing getting done -- put an end to that. After that, he started acting way more presidential.

Bach, it appears, gets from the start that he is the man. That's the way it should be.

One other thing that is notable is that the IOC, at the end of this one-day summit, had this multi-point action plan more or less ready to go. Anyone who has done committee work knows that committees don't do action work readily or easily. So this was already well in the works -- the deal points already hammered out, apparently via pre-meetings -- well before the new president summoned all "the senior representatives" to Lausanne for the face-to-face summit that produced the news release.

Note, by the way, the careful use of language. These were not "some senior representatives." The release pointedly makes use of the definite article, the word "the," before "senior representatives." The new president is by nature precise -- that's how that list of people got invited Sunday.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is called leadership.

The relay lights the way

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Moscow Avenue runs for 10 kilometers. It starts at Victory Square, commemorating the sacrifices of World War II. The street sees the Russian National Library. It carries past the House of Soviets, a major command post during the 900-day siege; out front is a massive statue of Lenin. The boulevard runs over the Fontanka River and then, finally, ends at Sennaya Square. Ten kilometers is roughly six miles. It rained on and off Sunday, the day the Olympic flame relay -- as it is formally known -- came to St. Petersburg. It was cold enough that already winter coats and hats were out. Even so, Moscow Avenue -- in Russian, Moskovksky Prospekt -- was jammed, the street lined on both sides, people everywhere and anywhere, just to get a glimpse of the flame.

They were literally hanging out of second-story windows. They were queueing at gas stations. They came sprinting out of a car dealership. Kids, and there were hundreds upon hundreds of kids,  waved flags and danced and pointed excitedly to their parents and uncles and aunts and teachers and didn't mind the rain and posed for pictures. The children acted -- well, like kids everywhere.

It has been nearly 30 years since Sting suggested in song that the Russians must love their children, too. The relay offers powerful proof of what the Sochi 2014 Games, which this week ticked under 100 days away, mean to this enormous, incredible country -- and, at the same time, an invitation to the rest of the world to find out about Russia beyond the well-worn stereotypes.

This has always been the power of the relay.

It symbolizes the better urge in the Olympic movement, the powerful impulse toward excellence, friendship and respect that is, in fact, universal.

Kids everywhere know that.

They knew it on my street in Hermosa Beach, California, in 1996 when I took my daughter, who was then 2 years old, out to see the relay go by right our house on its way to Atlanta for the Summer Games and all the neighbor kids were screaming and yelling in excitement.

Just like they did Sunday in St. Petersburg, Russia.

For much of the rest of the world, the onset of the 2014 Winter Games has meant a rash of controversies: a vague new law purporting to ban homosexual "propaganda" to young people, $50 billion and counting in construction, worries over snow or no, concerns over terrorism, all of it overseen by the face of today's Russia, the president himself, Vladimir Putin.

That catalogue underscores a simple truth: the Russians have not done themselves many, if any, PR favors.

Fundamentally, however, the wonder -- after four visits to Russia in not even six months -- is how much of what gets spun up about this country is still rooted all these many years after the end of the Cold War in what can often seem like an enduring dread, if not outright fear, in many quarters of the press.

Of all the stories and all the broadcasts, how many are from reporters who have ever set even one foot in Russia?

Russia takes time and effort. In today's 24/7, what-have-you-got-for-me-now news-cycle, those are resources that can seem most difficult to justify.

Russia is not, in a word, easy. It's not easy to get to; travel visas have traditionally been complicated and expensive. Moreover, once here, the language barrier is often ferocious. Even the alphabet is different.

Sochi itself, way down by the Black Sea,  is hard to get to. Where do you want to transfer through? Moscow? Istanbul? Vienna?

Then there is Putin, who is typically viewed as The Action Man One Dares Not Cross -- for fear he is at all times carrying plutonium-laced sushi, or something, in his pocket. Or, if he is back to riding shirtless on a horse, in his boots. Who knows?

These absurd caricatures are completely at odds with the Putin that the French ski legend Jean-Claude Killy, the International Olympic Committee's primary liaison with Russia and the Sochi 2014 project, described in a recent story in the French weekly Journal du Dimanche.

"The Putin I know is not the one described in the newspapers, where you see real 'Putin-bashing,' " Killy told the paper.

Killy added, "I have no reason to follow the crowd; I trust what I see. When he calls me from Moscow at three in the morning his time to wish me a happy birthday, I find that nice."

It's not that there is an essential misunderstanding in the west of Putin or, more broadly, of Russia.

There seems to be almost no understanding.

This, then, is the opportunity the Sochi 2014 Games present -- if, and this is a big it, the Russians themselves understand it is at hand.

And -- if they care, and want to do something about it.

To be clear:

There is much to criticize about the Sochi project. And there remains the potential for terrorism or other catastrophe that could further re-shape forever the way the 2014 Games are seen or understood.

At the same time, the relay lights the way toward a new understanding, the possibility that -- over time -- things can change. This is the promise and potential of the Olympic movement in every country it touches.

That said, change takes time, especially fundamental change, and especially in a vast and complicated place like Russia.

Consider, for example, this exchange on Monday between Putin and the newly elected IOC president, Thomas Bach, at the Adler Railway Station, one of the infrastructure facilities built for the 2014 Games. Adler is the town immediately next to Sochi.

"Sochi and the entire region have come a long way in their development over these last years, and successfully, too," Bach said. "This makes a deep impression on us. The Olympic sites will contribute to making the Sochi Olympics unique in the movement's history, and the facilities will offer sportspeople the best possible conditions."

Putin, a moment or two later, said, "It seems to me that you liked the railway station, too?"

Bach: "I more than liked it, not just for its functionality, but for its architecture, too. It impresses me very much that you were able to build this railway station in just four years. Aside from the architecture and the unique solutions to link the old and new stations, I was also impressed by the way the facilities have been designed to allow people with disabilities to use them. I learned today, for example, that a special path has been laid in the terminal for the visually impaired. I think this is an optimistic sign for the future, a sign that shows how architecture and construction are developing in general in Russia.

"Of course, this new station will be used after the Olympics, too, and will become part of the Olympic heritage not just for Sochi but for the whole country."

Putin: "Yes, I wanted to say the same words. It will be an important part of the Olympics' legacy."

Is this revolutionary? No.

Is this important stuff? Yes, just like the handicap ramps that were built as a design feature into a nearby hockey arena, also a new idea in Russia.

A recycling program for water bottles -- a new idea.

Another new idea -- the volunteer program that will make the Games go in a country that previously had no volunteer culture.

On a Sunday morning in St. Petersburg, there they were by the dozens in their blue vests, 2014 volunteers, out in the rain, seeing the relay down Moscow Avenue and beyond, bringing the Olympic flame to a part of Russia nearly 1,450 miles away from Sochi. They made lifetime memories for literally thousands of people, and so many kids.

It was not even seven years ago, the summer of 2007, that Sochi was bidding for the 2014 Games. To have imagined such a scene then -- truly, it was unthinkable.

Putin: one clever guy

It has been just over four months since Russian president Vladimir Putin signed into law a measure that purports to ban "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" to those under 18. In the west, activists have howled. In Russia, those howls have left senior officials entirely unmoved. The International Olympic Committee finds itself in the middle -- akin to the position it found itself in five years ago, in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Games, when activists seeking to draw attention to a variety of issues in China, in particular in Tibet, wanted to know why the IOC wasn't pressuring the Chinese government to do more.

The answer, then as now, is that the IOC is not a government. It is not even a quasi-government. Contrary to public opinion, its ability to exert "pressure" on a state authority is limited.

At any rate, an equally intriguing question is why the Russian authorities found it if not necessary then at the least certainly important this past June to pass such a measure. They knew full well the Sochi Olympics were going to start Feb. 7, 2014.

The question is all the more compelling as the University of Southern California's Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media & Society on Tuesday opens a three-day conference in Los Angeles entitled, "Sports & The LGBT Experience."

Surely the Russians had to know they were going to incite a furious reaction. Why invite such controversy?

The answer is telling. No matter the fury, the Russians seem unfazed. The heat to them seems simply more proof their society is different and different is just fine.

"Putin cares less and less about Western outcry -- be it gays or something else," said Sergei Strokan, a foreign-affairs columnist at Kommersant, a leading Russian daily -- and Kremlin-neutral -- newspaper.

"He believes in his superiority over the West. The belief is rooted in understanding Russia as a unique civilization with no Western rot."

A reminder: this law passed the Duma, the Russian lower house, by a vote of 436-0, with one abstention.

Only 12 percent of Russians consider homosexuality fully equivalent to heterosexuality, 35 percent are convinced it is a disease or a result of psychological trauma while 43 consider it a bad habit, according to a survey published in May by the independent Levada Center.

The survey was conducted April 19-22 among 1,600 respondents from 45 Russian regions; its margin of error is 3 to 4 percent.

It is not a crime to be gay in Russia. Then again, homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia only 20 years ago and, obviously, anti-gay sentiment remains powerful.

"It's about politics. It's not about gay people," said Sufian Zhemukov, the Heyward Isham visiting scholar of Russian and East European studies at George Washington University and co-author of a forthcoming book that uses the prism of Sochi and the Olympics as a case study of Russian life.

He added a moment later, "Adopting the anti-gay law gets some points for the current regime because they are adopting a law [about] which most of the population approves."

Then there's this:

When you bid for an Olympics, it's generally the case that you make the campaign all about what you can do for the Olympics. Then the next seven years are all about what the Olympic movement can do for you, the winner. The fixed deadline of the opening ceremony concentrates the mind: you build bridges, metro lines, stadiums, all of that, and then you show off what you've done to the world.

In this instance, Putin seems to have learned the lesson, and ramped it up a notch.

The Sochi Games are reportedly the most-expensive ever, with costs already estimated at north of $51 billion to build a winter destination from a Black Sea summer resort.

In essence, what Putin is doing is using the Olympics not just to assert Russia's place in the world --a reprise of  the Chinese play for 2008 -- but to remind Russians themselves that Russia is, in these first years of the 21st century, still a force with which to be reckoned.

Russia's population is dwindling. Across its multiple time zones there are infrastructure challenges large and small. Yet in Sochi Putin audaciously said, we will build it and you will come.

Of course, most everyone who will come will be Russian. It's too far and too complicated for most everyone else. Is that OK by Putin and senior Russian staff? For sure.

After the Games, what about those facilities in Sochi? For years to come they can be the training base for Russian teams.

One of the things about an Olympics is that exposure to the big, wide world out there tends to bring about the percolation of ideas. But these things take time. Like -- years.

Already, because of the forthcoming Games in Russia, there is a volunteer program, a recycling project for water bottles and handicap ramps at the Sochi 2014 arenas. Those are big new ideas in that country.

All societies evolve.

It wasn't so long ago that the idea of gay marriage in the United States was a political non-starter; this week, New Jersey is just the latest to allow same-sex marriage.

For that matter, it wasn't all that long ago that a law very much like the one at the center of the controversy in Russia was on the books in the United Kingdom.

That law, called "Section 28," outlawed the promotion of homosexuality in Britain's schools. Introduced in the late 1980s, it was finally repealed across Britain in 2003. The current prime minister, David Cameron, has acknowledged himself not having a perfect record in voting for gay rights and in 2009 apologized for Section 28, calling it "offensive to gay people."

One strains to remember American bartenders pouring Scotch whiskey down the drain because of Section 28 in the way that activists earlier this year were calling for vodka boycotts.

Indeed, it is hardly a stretch to observe that it was only the spotlight of the Olympics that brought so much attention to the Tibetan cause five years ago -- and now to the issue of gay rights.

Both sides are, in their way, getting exactly what they want.

In the United States, for instance, the U.S. Olympic Committee this month amended its non-discrimination policy to include sexual orientation. The spark for that change happening now was the Russian law.

The USOC's move is, its senior leadership made plain, the right thing to do.

For Putin, too -- it underscores distinctions in a way he couldn't possibly articulate better. He must be just short of gleeful watching the dominoes do their thing.

"Putin," said Strokan, the Kommersant columnist, "sees no major controversy that can spoil the atmosphere of the Games."

This is someone who, when he came back to office on May 7, 2012, scheduled his very first meeting that day with the-then IOC president, Jacques Rogge. Who, when Thomas Bach was elected last month, managed to track down the new IOC president just minutes later via cellphone, as Bach was working the line with reporters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and wish him congratulations.

There's zero wonder why this measure came up months before the Sochi Olympics. Vladmir Putin did not get to be president of Russia -- repeatedly -- without being a very smart and calculating guy.

Always -- always -- remember that.

How to decode IOC news releases

The headlines Wednesday were all about Richard Carrión stepping down from his senior positions within the International Olympic Committee in the aftermath of his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency. Carrión, a banking executive from Puerto Rico, resigned from his "different positions within the IOC," the organization said in a news release, in particular his role as chairman of the finance commission. Under his watch, IOC reserves grew to more than $900 million, ensuring the IOC's financial security.

Carrión also resigned as the IOC's point man on TV rights deals outside of Europe but agreed to stay on in that position through the Sochi Games, which end Feb. 23, to afford the IOC -- and new president Thomas Bach -- continuity.

Carrión will remain a regular IOC member. But he will also step down from his position as chair of the audit committee and walk away from his spot on the coordination commission for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

That's the news that went around the world on the wires Wednesday, and it is 100 percent accurate.

But, as ever, the back stories are way more interesting.

Bach is in the first stages of team-building.

Carrión, meanwhile, runner-up to Bach in the September election, did the honorable -- and classy -- thing by tendering his resignations. It's that simple.

He and Bach met last Friday at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Any effort to suggest that Carrión is resigning out of anger or spite would be just way off base.

Indeed, Carrión put out a statement that said, "It has been an extraordinary privilege and experience to have chaired the IOC finance commission for the past 11 years and to have fulfilled agreements that have helped secure a solid financial foundation for the Olympic movement.

"I have always thought that a new leader needs room to set a course and select his team. As such, I submitted my resignation for President Bach's consideration. I look forward to continuing my service as an IOC member, and help in any way with the new leadership's transition."

Bach won the Sept. 10 election, at the IOC's landmark 125th session in Buenos Aires, with 49 votes in the second round; Carrión came in second in the six-man field with 29. Also at that session: Tokyo won for 2020 and the IOC reinstated wrestling to the Summer Games program for 2020 and 2024.

Singapore's Ser Miang Ng, another of the candidates, will chair the next meeting of the finance commission in December, the IOC said in that release.

To find the news that Carrión was stepping down from his various positions -- and that Ng would be handling the December meeting -- you had to read all the way down to the fourth paragraph in that release.

The third: Arne Ljungqvist of Sweden, Gerhard Heiberg of Norway and Hein Verbruggen of Holland would continue in their roles as chairmen of the medical commission, marketing commission and Olympic Broadcasting Services until after Sochi 2014, again for the sake of continuity; their terms had been due to run at the end of the Buenos Aires meeting.

Up top: John Coates of Australia will chair the Tokyo 2020 coordination commission, and Frankie Fredericks of Namibia the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Games, and this is where you start to see Bach's team-building start to take shape.

Concentrating here on Tokyo 2020 because one of Bach's campaign suggestions is a review of the Youth Games project, an initiative launched by his predecessor, Jacques Rogge:

Make no mistake -- Coates is a shrewd pick as coordination chair, absolutely qualified on any number of levels. He is a super-smart lawyer; veteran international federation official (rowing); has experience helping to oversee a Games (Sydney 2000); and has service on two other coordination committees (London 2012, Rio 2016).

Beyond all that, during the campaign season, Coates was well-known to be a Bach supporter. Further, Coates is himself a newly elected IOC vice president with no upward IOC political ambition. The new president can absolutely, totally count on Coates' loyalty.

The vice-chair of the Tokyo 2020 CoCom: Alex Gilady of Israel.

This is a no-brainer, and for three reasons.

One, Gilady is one of the world's foremost experts on television and the Olympic Games.

Two, he has served -- or serves still -- on the Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016 CoComs.

Three, it is the fortunate soul who gets the counsel of Alex Gilady. He was there always and in all ways for Rogge and the IOC president before Rogge, Juan Antonio Samaranch. Now, Thomas Bach.

Also on the 2020 CoCom:

Two up-and-comers, the swimming great Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, and Mikaela Cojuangco-Jaworski of the Philippines, who is a champion equestrienne and an actress.

Also: Anita DeFrantz of the United States, elected in Buenos Aires to the IOC's policy-making executive board, with the backing of Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah. After 12 years of being largely on the sidelines, she clearly is seeking a more dynamic role like the one she had during the Samaranch years.

As of Sept. 10, so that it is clearly understood, this is the power structure of the IOC: Bach is, indisputably, at the top;  the sheikh is his ally;  and, in perhaps the most intriguing piece of news in that IOC release, in a note far down that has received almost no attention whatsoever in all the stories that ricocheted around the world, there is the undeniable emergence of Marius Vizer, president of the International Judo Federation.

Vizer, last spring, was elected head of SportAccord, the umbrella federation for the international sports federations.

The IOC release, of course without comment, noted that he, too, would be part of the Tokyo 2020 CoCom, representing ASOIF, the federation of summer sports federations.

His appointment shows how quickly things can change.

Vizer and the sheikh are known to have an excellent relationship. The same, obviously, for the sheikh and the new president.

When Vizer was running for the SportAccord post, he suggested the notion of a "United World Championships" for all federations every four years. That could be seen as a direct challenge to the Olympics.

Bach, months ago when announcing his presidential candidacy, without referring directly to Vizer or Vizer's proposal, emphasized the IOC must work to keep the Olympics the "most attractive event in the world."

He added, "We must ensure that the uniqueness of the Olympic Games is not diluted by other events and that other incentives to not distract the athletes from viewing the Olympic Games as the real peak and ultimate goal of their efforts."

That was then. This is now.

Like a lot of other people in Olympic circles who at first wondered about Vizer but have come to know him better over the spring and summer, the judo federation president has gained a considerable following. They say now he is sophisticated, innovative and backs up his talk when it comes to putting athletes at the center of the experience.

Also, the IJF media output could teach much-larger federations a thing or two, particularly in our digital age.

Further, there's this:

There were many forces -- the sheikh, of course, and more -- that helped secure Bach's election. The dynamics at work in Buenos Aires included wrestling's push to get back into the Games over squash and a combined bid from baseball/softball as well as Tokyo's 2020 showdown with Madrid and Istanbul.

Russian interests in particular, it was said quietly in Buenos Aires, were keen to see what proved to be the winning triple play -- Tokyo, wrestling, Bach -- and it takes literally less than a second's search on the internet to produce a photo of Vizer together with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The Russian state is overseeing the spending of more than $50 billion to prepare Sochi for 2014. Putin's influence in the Olympic movement is, in a word, profound.

The absolutely reasonable -- and undeniable -- conclusion to draw from the Tokyo 2020 CoCom list is this:

It's nothing less than a trial balloon for Marius Vizer's name as a candidate for IOC membership.

This is the way these things get done. See Japan's Tsunekazu Takeda, who served on the Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 CoComs. He was made an IOC member in 2012 and in September led Tokyo to victory for 2020.

Marius Vizer a member, and sooner than later. Remember, you read it here first.

Sheikh Ahmad on the record

BUENOS AIRES -- Kuwait's Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah laughed the laugh of a man who had accomplished everything here he had set out to do. "The media asked what I thought," he said. "And I said, 'Thank you for making me a hero.' "

This was last Tuesday afternoon here in the lobby of the Hilton hotel. Germany's Thomas Bach had just been elected the ninth International Olympic Committee president. Earlier in the session, wrestling had been put back on the program. Tokyo had won for 2020.

Some moments before, Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles had won election to the IOC's policy-making election board. This had delighted some. Some found it almost improbable. After all, without the sheikh in her corner, DeFrantz had managed just single-digits in prior campaigns over the past 12 years.

The U.S. Olympic Committee is still a long way from making a decision on a bid from 2024. The costs are staggering. Federal government is extremely unlikely. That said, if DeFrantz can win for the executive board with the sheikh's backing, a 2024 U.S. bid -- which he is known right now to support -- has to at least be considered.

The sheikh riffed some more: "The Americans asked me, 'Are you the most powerful man in sport?' I ask, 'Are you the most powerful country?' "

Then the sheikh got serious: "To ask if I am the most powerful man does a disservice to the power of Dr. Bach." He ticked off Bach's accomplishments: gold medal-winning fencer, IOC member for 22 years, veteran on the executive board, chair of the legal commission, chief of anti-doping investigations, negotiator of European television rights.

"Do not," he said, "do not make it look like Dr. Bach is not the power. He is the power."

Bach, 59, was elected last Tuesday the ninth IOC president.

Over the course of last week in Buenos Aires, meanwhile, the sheikh, head of the Olympic Council of Asia and of the 205-member Assn. of the National Olympic Committees, firmly established himself as the leading man of Olympic influence.

Tokyo, wrestling, Bach -- the sheikh completed a trifecta. Then, for good measure, DeFrantz.

The corollary questions:

How is this happening, and why? And is this concentration of influence in one man good for the Olympic movement?

Some are delighted. Here is a man who says he will get things done. They get done.

At the same time, others -- within and without the movement -- are wary.

And there are those, truth be told, who would would use stronger words still.

The al-Sabah family holds key positions in the Kuwaiti government and military; it has wide-ranging interests in the petroleum industry. The sheikh has made no secret of any of this. His Olympic biography, for instance, recounts his own military service as a Kuwaiti army officer (1985-90). It details, too, how he was OPEC chairman from 2003-05 as well as his country's energy minister and, since 2006, its minister of national security.

A 2008 American embassy cable, disclosed by Wikileaks, proclaims that Sheikh Ahmad is "widely perceived as being corrupt." It offers no evidence for this assertion. It also offers this no-holds-barred compliment about him: "[Sheikh Ahmad] is clever and ambitious and is widely seen as being the only member of the ruling family having both the will and the capacity to rule."

At his very first news conference as president, just hours after being elected, Bach fielded questions from around the room about his relationship with the sheikh, whose support had been well-known.

"You can't win the elections for the IOC president with the support of one person alone," Bach said, adding a moment later and referring to the IOC members, "They are very strong individual personalities. You have to convince them individually. This is what I tried to do in my campaign."

Responding to another question, Bach said, "In all my conversations with the members, there was not a promise being made. This allows me next Tuesday, when I go to Lausanne," meaning IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, along Lake Geneva, "to start with a white sheet of paper."

Already, meanwhile, speculation is rampant that the sheikh might be interested in himself running one day for president of the IOC. Bach's term is for eight years, renewable for four more. The sheikh is just 50. There's plenty of time.

What so many want to know about the sheikh is whether is he a force for good, or otherwise.

All journalists learn early on that if one is suspicious one should think like the police or prosecutors do. If it's misconduct or wrongdoing you're looking for, look for evidence of sex, money, drugs, a lust for power or some combination thereof.

The sheikh's hangout in Lausanne is the upscale Beau Rivage hotel, along the lake. His money is for sure good there. But the same can be said of any number of IOC members.

The sheikh threw a party in Buenos Aires at the conclusion of the landmark 125th session. It was a private affair, invitation only at a super-fancy hotel. It probably was a pretty nice deal. A couple days earlier, at the same hotel, the wrestling people threw a really nice celebration party. It for sure was a really nice deal.

The sheik -- and his many, many supporters -- insist there's nothing to be suspicious about.

They say he is completely legit.

In fact, they assert, he is unequivocally committed in the Olympic sphere to best-practices good governance and transparency.

The sheikh took over ANOC last year. That role gives him oversight of the IOC's Solidarity Commission, a program that aims to provide financial, technical and administrative assistance to national Olympic committees, particularly those in developing nations.

Its 2009-13 budget: $435 million, up nearly 40 percent from the 2009-12 cycle's $311 million.

As one senior European IOC member, speaking on condition of anonymity said, "The sheikh is dedicated. The sheikh is active. The sheik is interested. It's a new order."

There endures an air of mystery about Sheikh Ahmad because of the part of the world he is from; because he is a member of his nation's royal family; because he moves in a circle to which access can be tightly controlled; and because he rarely gives on-the-record interviews.

The sheikh moves easily in Arab, western and Asian cultures. He is completely at ease in languages, including English.

It would be a fundamental mistake to underestimate Sheikh Ahmad. He is tireless. He is also keenly intelligent.

The skeptic would say it helps the sheikh considerably, as that formal Olympic bio notes, to have been minister of his country's national security's office for the past seven years. A more benign view would be that one doesn't get to that office in the first instance without first being shrewd and sophisticated about human beings, and what makes them tick.

The sheikh has been an IOC member since 1992; his father had been killed the year before, on the second day of the Iraqi invasion. The son learned a great deal from Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC president from 1980 until 2001, particularly about the value of relationships. The outgoing president, Jacques Rogge, referred to him last Monday in a light moment as "someone who is like my younger brother."

This is a significant key to the sheikh's success in moving within the IOC.

It has been said many, many times about the IOC but bears repeating. Within the so-called Olympic family, relationships are everything.

So, too, the sheikh said, in trying to advance any campaign: "Logic."

And, he said: "Credibility."

And: "In the end, winning."

As simple as this seems, it's also elemental, and why so many want to jump aboard with him: "People like to win."

Before the presidential voting, the only issue was not whether Bach would win. It was whether he would steamroll to a first-round victory.

Almost.

In a field of six, Bach needed 47 for victory. He got 43 -- itself a remarkable thing.

In the next round, again needing 47, Bach picked up six more votes, winning easily.

His nearest challenger, Richard Carrión of Puerto Rico, managed 29. Ser Miang Ng of Singapore took six, Denis Oswald of Switzerland five, Sergei Bubka of Ukraine four. C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei had been eliminated in the first round.

Asked if non-believers ought to believe in him now, the sheikh said, "I think people ought to believe in those numbers."

He made a joke: "I am not competing for a spot in the international journalists' federation."

Then, again, seriously, "There [are] rumors, media, PR," adding a moment later, "In the end you have to accept. I think people are accepting me."

Bach wins the presidency

BUENOS AIRES -- Thomas Bach of Germany was elected president of the International Olympic Committee Tuesday, replacing Jacques Rogge of Belgium. Bach is a gold medal-winning fencer at the 1976 Montreal Games who went on to become a lawyer. He was made an IOC member in 1991 and has served in virtually every position but president. Over the years, he has made no secret of his ambition for the top job.

Now he has it, winning decisively in the second round of voting over five other candidates. He received 49 votes, two more than he needed. Combined, the other five got 44.

Bach, 59, becomes the IOC's ninth president. Eight of the nine have been Europeans. The only exception: the American Avery Brundage, who served from 1952 to 1972.

The new president will serve a term of at least eight years. IOC rules permit the possibility of a four-year second term. Bach said he hoped to lead according to his campaign motto, "Unity in diversity," and declared, "You should know that my door, my ears and my heart are always open for you.''

The intrigue in Tuesday's balloting underscored Bach's support -- completely overt -- from the Olympic world's new No. 1 power-broker, Kuwait's Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah.

Also manifestly at work Tuesday, indeed throughout this landmark 125th IOC session, at which Tokyo was selected host for the 2020 Games and wrestling was put back onto the program for the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics:  the influence of Russian president Vladimir Putin. As Bach was making his way down a line of reporters shortly after being elected, Dmitry Chernyshenko's phone rang. He heads the Sochi 2014 organizing committee. It was Putin calling, for Bach, with congratulations.

As one triangulates, let there be no doubt: Sheikh Ahmad is now unequivocally positioned as one of the most influential figures in international sport.

This, too: Bach is certainly European. But to have a key political backer who is head of the Olympic Council of Asia and head of the Assn. of National Olympic Committees is perhaps evidence of a subtle shift in the Olympic worldview.

At any rate, about this there can be no misunderstanding: the IOC election Tuesday completed a turn that through 2013 has seen an older generation of leadership moved aside by younger personalities with different ideas and new energy.

This political master drama, a classical study that academics and operatives alike could learn much from as it played out in real life over more than 10 years, intensifying over the last 18 months, culminated Tuesday in Bach's emphatic ascent.

Out: Rogge, Mexico's Mario Vazquez Raña and, in something of a rebuke to the outgoing president, his former associate, the former International Cycling Union president Hein Verbruggen of Holland. Verbruggen served Rogge in a variety of roles, including as chief of the Beijing 2008 Games coordination commission; he was also the former head of SportAccord, the umbrella group of international sport federations.

Vazquez Raña and Verbruggen have hardly disappeared from the scene, and to count them out completely -- each entirely accomplished and hugely intelligent -- might well, it is true, be premature. Now, though, the leverage and access are completely different.

In: Bach, the sheikh, the judo federation and new SportAccord president Marius Vizer, who lives in Hungary, and perhaps a handful of trusted others. This, as Bach's mandate gets underway, is the essential new power base of Olympic sport.

Bach defeated five other challengers: Richard Carrión of Puerto Rico, Sergei Bubka of Ukraine, Denis Oswald of Switzerland, Ser Miang Ng of Singapore and C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei. Only Carrión, the IOC's finance chairman, managed even double-digits in the two rounds of voting.

In Bach, amid a world buffeted by economic, environmental and security challenges, the IOC signaled that it was not looking for transformational change.

While the other five candidates in their campaign manifestoes, or action plans, had proposed suggestions that put the IOC at the center of a variety of wide-ranging global sport and technology initiatives, Bach for the most part focused on the IOC's franchise, the Olympic Games.

"Considering the many challenges ahead, the IOC's focus must be safeguarding the uniqueness and relevance of the Olympic Games in an ever-changing world," Bach had said in his.

He also said that "keeping the Olympic Games the most attractive event in the world for all stakeholders is a top priority for the IOC."

This may not be especially bold. This might not be particularly opportunistic. Then again, the IOC tends to be traditional, especially at big moments. And, given the stakes, it makes fundamental sense when looked at in bright light.

Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016, for instance, are now being referred to in influential Olympic circles as "experiment" Olympics. The capital budget for Sochi is already north of $50 billion and the new anti-gay law there has raised concerns in several Western nations. In Rio, construction is running slow and over-budget and, moreover, it was disclosed here that sponsorships are proving hard to sell.

Thus: when the IOC members looked around at this moment in time, what -- most -- did they want?

Continuity.

The Rogge years will likely be viewed, most of all, by one word: stability.

Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain served before Rogge for 21 years. Samaranch is still largely a beloved figure within the IOC. Elsewhere, the first thing that often comes up is the Salt Lake City corruption scandal, which erupted in the late 1990s.

Rogge was elected in large measure to see the IOC through the Salt Lake reforms and to restore the institution's worldwide prestige.

"You have led us through those bad times," Princess Haya al Hussein of the United Arab Emirates, president of the International Equestrian Federation, told Rogge as the assembly closed late Monday, adding he "clearly understood" the IOC's way forward was rooted in "good governance."

She said he had brought "our family out of its darkest times into a good future," years that in time people will come to understand as truly remarkable fiscally, growing the IOC's financial reserves from $100 million to more than $900 million despite the global economic crisis -- enough to survive an entire four-year Olympic cycle, indeed to secure what the princess called a "clear future."

Rogge's response was classic: "I did no more than my duty,"  he said, adding, "What has been achieved is not one man. It is a team. Thank you very much."

Rogge, an orthopedic surgeon by training, came to office on a summer Monday in Moscow in 2001. He was then 59, an IOC member for 10 years, a man of distinct vigor, his hair still dark.

After 12 years in office, he steps down in winter on a Tuesday in Buenos Aires. He is now 71. His hair is grey.

"If you want to achieve something in the IOC, you have to age," he said wryly during the assembly late Monday to Christophe Dubi, the sports director and incoming Games executive director, whom Rogge has always called "young man."

Intensely European himself, Rogge nonetheless oversaw Games for the first time in China (2008) and the IOC's "new horizons" moves to South America (Rio 2016) and, for the Winter Games, Russia (2014) and South Korea (2018).

Rogge oversaw six editions of the Games, three Summer, three Winter and, as well, ushered in the Youth Games, the first Summer edition in Singapore in 2010, the first Winter product in Innsbruck in 2012.

"The fact that I could describe six Olympic Games and two Youth Games as being successful is for me the biggest reward I could have," he said here.

Beyond Salt Lake, Rogge also had to cope with unexpectedly intensified security concerns. The 9/11 attacks took place three months after Rogge took office, just five months before the 2002 Salt Lake Games, and would add security complications to those Olympics and thereafter.

He had to confront a multitude of financial issues. Some involved a lengthy dispute with the U.S. Olympic Committee over certain broadcasting and marketing revenues. They cut a new deal last year.

There were other issues as well: illicit doping and illegal match-fixing, in particular.

Throughout, Rogge remained typically calm, almost always implacable. His management style tended toward the technocratic. It was big on process.

This could be seen in the 12 years of back, forth and sideways over the Summer Games line-up which ended Sunday with the members' vote to reinstate wrestling.

It had been kicked out in February of what was called the "core" group of sports by the IOC's policy-making executive board, then forced to fight with squash and a combined bid from baseball/softball for a place.

Squash has been on the outside looking in for 10 years. Baseball and softball were both once in and now are out. Meanwhile, over the Rogge presidency, the only additions to the Summer Games sports line-up are that, come 2016, golf and rugby-sevens will be played.

Surfing? Skateboarding? Still waiting.

Virtually everyone associated with the Olympic movement agrees the program needs wholesale review.

So, too, the bid city process. The 2020 line-up produced just three finalists -- Tokyo, Madrid, Istanbul -- after four for 2016 and five of the world's great cities for 2012.

Mostly, what the movement needs is simply a dose of new energy.

There are those who say that in Bach, the sheikh and Vizer the movement is heading in ways no one can portend.

Then again, these three also say that they -- along with the head of the Summer Games' federations' association, which goes by the acronym ASOIF, currently Francesco Ricci Bitti of Italy, the international tennis federation president -- can foresee a new way. They say it might open up new avenues of governance and, to be candid, transparency.

Big picture, the IOC is caught in transition between 19th-century club and 21st-century multibillion-dollar business.

The way the IOC is structured, authority has been far too confined between the president, the director-general and remarkably few staff. The model would hardly pass many business-school studies.

Bach surely now has a mandate.

The sole question heading into Tuesday's vote was not whether Bach would win. It was whether he would win on the first round.

"People are turning," one of the soon-to-be defeated candidates had said late Monday night, acknowledging the obvious. "For months they tell you one thing. They look at you in the eye and now tonight they tell you something else. It's very disappointing."

It is an IOC maxim that in the first round members vote for their friends. In the second they get serious.

In the first-round, Bach carried 43. Carrión got 23, Bubka 8, Oswald 7, Ng and Wu 6 apiece. IOC rules put the tie to a run-off; Ng got 56, Wu 36; Ng moved on to the second round, Wu was eliminated.

In the second round, needing 47 votes to win, Bach got those 49. Carrión took 29, Ng 6, Oswald 5, Bubka 4.

The candidacies of both Ng and Wu were apparently hurt by Tokyo's win for 2020. Five times to Asia in 12 years ... Tokyo 2020 just three days ago ... the notion of an Asian president ... it was all, as the as the senior Canadian member Dick Pound put it, "too much Asia, too soon."

Twelve years ago, Rogge -- in a field of five -- won in the second round with 59 votes; runner-up Kim Un Young of South Korea got 23.

If it seems obvious, this is a lesson Samaranch taught, and the sheikh obviously took to heart: relationships are everything, and people like to know that they matter.

This is why the line-up to see Sheikh Ahmad in Room 532 of the Hilton Hotel here throughout the week was non-stop. What was he offering inside? Coffee. Tea. Water.

On Monday evening, wearing a paisley jeans and a shirt, he stopped in front of a coffee bar in the Hilton lobby. For a solid 10 minutes, a stream of well-wishers stopped to chat.

The sheikh, 50, first signaled his strength last year when he took over as president of the Assn. of National Olympic Committees, deposing the venerable Vazquez Raña. ANOC represents the world's 204 national Olympic committees. The vote: 174 in his favor, one against, two abstentions.

Last year in London, he helped elect to the IOC executive board both Patrick Hickey of Ireland and one of Tuesday's presidential candidates, Wu.

Earlier this year, he and his team helped engineer Vizer's SportAccord election.

Then, earlier this summer, they saw to it that Buenos Aires won the 2018 Youth Games.

On Saturday, Tokyo 2020.

Tuesday, Bach.

In voting later Tuesday afternoon the sheikh helped elect Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles to the IOC's executive board. She had last served on the board in 2001.

One of the players in one of these dramas was in the Hilton lobby after the presidential election. He was willing to speak but not for the record:  "A new world is open now."