ANOC gets big-time professionalized

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait — When you are living it in the moment, it is of course a challenge indeed to know whether a three-day meeting spread across a hotel complex and an office tower makes for a turning point, the sort of thing that accounts for the sort of thing Olympic historians can one day point to with distinct accuracy and say, this was when it all came together. As it drew Monday night to a close, however, it seemed abundantly evident that the time is now for the 204-member Association of National Olympic Committees.

Headed by the charismatic Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, ANOC seems poised to assert itself on the Olympic scene as never before.

Against the backdrop of the International Olympic Committee’s own 2014 review process, dubbed “Olympic Agenda 2020,” with the international sports federations due next week to meet in Turkey at the SportAccord conference under the leadership of the influential Marius Vizer, ANOC — first on the post-Sochi calendar — made the most of the timing.

IOC president Thomas Bach, and Vizer, among others, were in attendance here in Kuwait.

In all, 41 of the 106 IOC members were drawn to this desert meeting.

Actually, three separate sessions took place:

— ANOC, overseen by Sheikh Ahmad since a revolution of sorts in Moscow in 2012. The organization had been headed — since its June 1979 founding — by Mexico’s Mario Vazquez Raña.

— Olympic Council of Asia, the regional confederation, overseen by Sheikh Ahmad since 1991.

— Olympic Solidarity, the IOC initiative, overseen now as well by Sheikh Ahmad, that aims to identify and train promising athletes from around the world. It carries a 2013-2016 budget of $438 million.

The trip to Kuwait marked Bach’s first to the region since becoming IOC president last September. In a news conference Saturday, noting the participation of ANOC, OCA and others in Olympic Agenda 2020, he called these meetings an “important step in the procedure.”

ANOC, meanwhile, kicked things off Saturday with a series of commission meetings.

So what?

So often the volunteers who make up the Olympic movement are derided for what is depicted as the desire to belly up to some trough and pig out on all the free food and booze imaginable.

One, this is Kuwait. There wasn’t booze.

Two, these meetings were held in the second floor of the Missoni hotel, or alternatively at the Olympic Council of Asia complex, starting at 9 a.m. sharp. It was like being in a hotel room in Buffalo, or Cleveland, or anywhere. The doors were locked and no one got out, except for a coffee break, for three hours. The afternoon sessions? Same deal. Three hours, if not longer.

Three, the nine commissions were a first — specialized task-forces created, 30-some years after ANOC itself got launched, to, as a press statement would put it, “add fresh impetus to ANOC’s ongoing process of reform and modernization at a time when the IOC is calling on all stakeholders within the Olympic movement to undergo a process of self-analysis and self-evaluation.”

Here, for instance, was a “marketing and new sources of finance” commission, headed by Larry Probst, the U.S. Olympic Committee board chair and new IOC member.

“He’s a professional,” Sheikh Ahmad was saying Sunday night of Probst. “For that I was very happy when I was hearing all those reports. The road map is very clear. It’s never too late, as I was mentioning in the beginning.”

There was a “modernization follow-up commission.”

There were, among others, finance, juridical and medical panels.

Too, here was an athletes’ commission, headed by Barbara Kendall, winner of gold, silver and bronze medals in windsurfing, also an IOC member and, moreover, runner-up in 2009 in the New Zealand version of “Dancing with the Stars.”

And so on — all part of the professionalization of ANOC.

ANOC also approved a new logo, the design soon to be made public.

It authorized plans, at a one-time cost of $20 million, for new headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Sheikh Ahmad said at a news conference Monday night he was confident the bid would be brought in under budget.

Plans are in the works for a world Beach Games, perhaps as soon as 2015; interest has been solicited from a number of cities; a final report on the project is due at a meeting, set for Lausanne of the ANOC executive council in July, the sheikh said.

Another project — a gala awards ceremony. This is now set for Nov. 7, at the ANOC general assembly, in Bangkok. The concept — they’re thinking big — is for this gala is in very short order to become the sports Oscars, and with all due respect to every other show out there, ANOC has ambition and resource.

“I think this the reality of the NOCs,” Sheikh Ahmad said Monday night at that same news conference. “I think the NOCs have a good role to play in the movement …

“The head is the IOC. At the right hand should the NOCs. The left hand should be the IFs," meaning the international sports federations. "This, I believe, is the summary of the situation.

“For that we have to work because we lost 30 years of our movement.

“We have to work in a very speedy way to reach exactly all our demands. This is the demand of our NOCs.

“What we promised in the Moscow general assembly [in 2012], I think we will achieve it all in Bangkok.

“In two years we will have achieved everything. Then we will have a stable situation to develop and achieve our success.”

Why by the Persian Gulf

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait — Accounting for the sudden resignation a couple days ago of French ski legend Jean-Claude Killy, there are now 106 active members of the International Olympic Committee. As the IOC president, Thomas Bach, pointed out in a news conference Sunday morning, Arabic hospitality is known worldwide.

Maybe that is why a reported 41 IOC members gave up their weekend to come to Kuwait to attend the meeting of the 204-member Association of National Olympic Committees.

Or perhaps it is a signal of the considerable influence of Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah — who, among other roles, is the ANOC president — that some four of 10 IOC members came to Kuwait from around the world.

Here, among others: IOC vice president and Rio 2016 coordination chair Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco. Executive board members Pat Hickey of Ireland and Gunilla Lindberg of Sweden.

IOC athletes’ commission chair Claudia Bokel of Germany, another executive board member.

Larry Probst, the U.S. Olympic Committee board chairman and new IOC member.

And many more influential personalities within the Olympic sphere — among them, SportAccord and International Judo Federation president Marius Vizer.

The Sochi Games closed just roughly five weeks ago.

The IOC executive board meeting, to be held in conjunction with the SportAccord conference in Turkey, goes down next week.

It’s not as if IOC members are — or were — lacking for opportunities to get together.

Yet here they were.

For ANOC, this was in fact something of a history-making occasion. On Saturday, it held a variety of commission meetings — that is, the first time its commissions were said to have had these kinds of meetings, all designed as a lead-up toward the ANOC general assembly this fall in Bangkok.

And then there was the pull of having Bach on hand as well.

“It’s a big honor to welcome the president of the International Olympic Committee here in Kuwait,” Sheikh Ahmad said at that same news conference.

Bach said, “We are having a broad discussion among all the stakeholders of the Olympic movement,” adding a moment later that the weekend involved “looking into the future and looking into the different roles of the stakeholders and ensuring the harmonious roles under the leadership of the IOC.”

Much of 2014, of course, is being devoted to what Bach has called “Olympic Agenda 2020,” a far-reaching review of what works — and what doesn’t — as the IOC and the broader movement, now past Sochi, regroups and looks toward Rio 2016, the 2022 Winter and 2024 Summer bid cycles and beyond.

Bach took a moment to note the “great success of the Sochi Games,” in contrast to the doom and gloom that preceded virtually all the talk beforehand.

Five bid cities are in the 2022 pipeline: Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing; Krakow, Poland; Lviv, Ukraine; and Oslo. Lviv must confront political upheaval; Krakow now looks set to deal with a referendum; Oslo is grappling with local challenges to long-held assumptions about who bears what responsibilities in the bid system.

How many of the five applicants will ultimately see it through to the 2015 IOC election in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, remains decidedly unclear.

A “candidature for the Games,” Bach said — reflecting on how the “great positive legacy” of Sochi is now “well understood by the respective cities and countries” — is a “great opportunity to transform a region and a society for the better.

“Therefore, I am not too worried.”

As for Olympic Agenda 2020, he laid out a timeline, apparently for the first time publicly, for getting to the IOC’s all-members extraordinary session in Monaco in December. There the issues will be debated and, presumably, decisions will be taken. Or, more likely, ratified:

— The special special email address set up to solicit suggestions from around the globe — OlympicAgenda2020@olympic.org — closes April 15.

— Working groups will convene, probably in June.

— July will see a summit of sorts, the presidents of the major stakeholders.

— In September, the results from the working groups and the “summit” will go to the IOC commissions. Bach is due to announce in the next few days the make-up of the 2014 commissions.

— In October, the commissions are due to make recommendations to the executive board.

— The board will prepare a document to be submitted to the extraordinary session, set for Dec. 6-7.

“This will give us a good opportunity, as the president has mentioned … to keep the values of the movement and the main ideals of the movement but also to develop the relationships,” Sheikh Ahmad said.

And if you want to know why more than 40 IOC members made their way this weekend to the Persian Gulf, there you have it.

Life is a relationship business. Especially in the IOC.

Who understands this principle?

Thomas Bach.

And the host for the weekend, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah. You had better believe he understands this is how things get done.

What does Sheikh Ahmad want?

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait — One rumor has him one day taking over FIFA, soccer’s international governing body. Another has it that he is simply biding his time and wants to be president of the International Olympic Committee. He is, after all, only 50 years old. Still remarkably young for a man at ease in so many intersections.

Yet another talking point has it that Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, the former OPEC chairman who since 2006 has been his country’s national security minister, is cleverly aiming to parlay his Olympic, soccer and sports portfolio into a long-range hardball twist, back into the top echelon of Kuwaiti leadership. When, of course, the timing is right.

What does the sheikh want?

A year ago, this was the question on the minds of virtually everyone in the Olympic sphere.

Throughout the spring and summer, and then at the historic 125th IOC session in early September in Buenos Aires, he parlayed his behind-the-scenes political acumen into a magnificent triple-play, helping to effect the election of Thomas Bach as president; Tokyo as host of the 2020 Summer Games; and the reinstatement of wrestling onto the Summer Games program.

For good measure, he even saw to it that Anita DeFrantz of the United States was elected to the IOC executive board — this after she had secured single digits in two prior election runs.

When all was said and done in Buenos Aires, as the sheikh was — and remains — quick to underscore, there was zero question that Bach was  indisputably in charge of all things IOC, indeed Olympic.

At the same time, there was no doubt, too, that the sheikh — head of the Olympic Council of Asia, the 204-member Association of National Olympic Committees and, as well, the IOC’s own Olympic Solidarity initiative, which carries oversight of a 2013-16 budget of $438 million — had positioned himself to be a man of significance, indeed.

The sheikh, for those who don't understand, practices grass-roots politics. Solidarity is a perfect example. It aims to provide financial, technical and administrative aid to national Olympic committees, particularly those in developing nations.

The 2013-2016 budget? Up more than 40 percent from the 2009-12 cycle, $311 million.

Since taking office, Bach, 60, has wasted little time making it plain that change is the order of the day. Bach has an eight-year mandate and, unless something extraordinary happens, will almost surely get four more years after that. He figures to be in office until 2025.

Even so, Sheikh Ahmad would by then only be in his early 60s, still plenty young enough to be -- the first Arabic -- IOC president. If that is what he wants.

Of course, 2025 is a long, long way away. The Bach years are just starting.

Last fall, Bach gave a speech at the United Nations outlining separate but important roles for the worlds of sport and politics, roles he again delineated at the Sochi Games. At the IOC session in Sochi, he invited comments from the floor, and got them — in all, 211 over a day and a half, an unheard-of number, the members weighing in on the make-up of the Olympic program, visits to bid cities and much, much more.

The IOC is due to study what — in nature and scope — will be done as part of what Bach has termed “Olympic Agenda 2020.” Another all-members assembly is planned for Monaco in early December.

For political junkies, this is all great stuff.

Thus, again the question: what does the sheikh want?

In his 18th-floor office, the waters of the Persian Gulf shimmering below as the sun set gently Friday in the west, the sheikh smiled. Over the course of this weekend, ANOC’s executive council is due to meet; dozens of IOC members are expected on hand; it is rumored Bach may make an appearance.

“I want to see the movement in a better situation,” the sheikh said.

“I want to see the movement flexible to receive everybody in it.

“I want to see the movement in a position which keeps the logo of the sport around the world and I don’t think this is [just] what Sheik Ahmad wants — I think this is what a lot of IOC members want,” he said, adding a moment later, “I think this is our dream.”

How, he was asked did he assess the state of the movement? Was it healthy? And how did he view prospects for Olympic Agenda 2020?

“I think it’s healthy, a healthy movement,” he said.

“My part should be two main roles. To show the wishes and the [desires] of the NOCs. Not all of them have a part of the IOC house. For that I have to be their ambassador …

“Then, as an IOC member, I have to support the president and be his supporter to achieve his goals.

"I have two different positions and be a supporter of both of them.”

Some, it was suggested, would say, yes, OK, but what about your own personal ambitions?

“I don’t think so,” Sheikh Ahmad said. “Otherwise, I will be in the EB of the IOC. I know everybody knows the story.”

So why so many rumors?

“I think the reality is not giving you witness for these rumors.”

He laughed.

“You know my way. I am an open man.”

Another laugh.

“Maybe it makes people a little scared [that] he,” and here the sheikh was referring to himself, “is an open man.”

IOC's signals of change

There are two ways to look at the announcement Saturday from the International Olympic Committee that sports such as skateboarding and sport climbing will put on "performances" at next summer's Youth Games in Nanjing. If you are the sort who recognizes that the IOC is and always will be, no matter what, a traditionally minded organization, where change moves at a stately pace, the fact that these sports are being reduced to demonstrations doubtlessly will provoke, yet again, exasperation. It's 2013, almost 2014. Come on, IOC. Get with the program. Skateboarding, right? And climbing is huge, particularly in Europe.

Then again, if you are the sort who sees that the new IOC president, Thomas Bach, has in three months launched an ambitious reform agenda designed to usher in change, and that getting skateboarding and climbing in particular before the members in Nanjing is a way to get them to see such sports with their own eyes so that both sports can get into the mainstream Games program sooner than later -- ah, well, then you understand how he is moving.

"We want to send a signal we are open for new and younger sports," Bach said.

In a teleconference Saturday that wrapped up a four-day "brainstorming" session at the Swiss resort of Montreux, up Lake Geneva from IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Bach announced a string of initiatives that together fit together as part of what he is calling "Olympic Agenda 2020."

In all, he intends to present a wide-ranging reform package to the full membership for discussion at the Sochi session in February and then for a vote at what the IOC is calling an "extraordinary session" to be held Dec. 6-7 in Monaco.

The entire list is likely to encompass the wide range of topics that dominated last summer's presidential campaign, which Bach won in September, everything from what sports are on the Games program to the age limit of the members (currently 70, with a move to lift it to 75) to whether the members ought to be allowed again to visit cities for the Olympic Games.

Such visits were banned in the aftermath of the Salt Lake City scandal of the late 1990s. That scandal ushered in a 50-point reform plan in 1999. Many of the issues now on the table have been percolating through the years since, through the presidency of Jacques Rogge, whom Bach succeeded.

Asked Saturday whether during the Montreux retreat the 15-member executive board discussed issues such as the age limit, the program and visits to bid cities, Bach demurred, saying that had to wait for public airing in just a few weeks.

He did say of the four days together: "This was a good experience with regard to team building because being together for four days and discussing for four days long, there you could expect you may see some hiccups in this discussion. It just did not happen. It always was very constructive. And, frankly, for four days long."

It is not clear whether, in the IOC's 117-year history, the Montreux retreat was something of a first. But for Bach it assuredly was: "This is a first brainstorming meeting I have lived in my time as an IOC member or as an IOC executive board member. I can not speak for the others."

The concepts -- as well as the details -- of what Olympic Agenda 2020, as Bach made plain repeatedly, are going to have to wait for Sochi and Monaco. A number of agenda items, however, he disclosed Saturday:

The executive board urged the 2022 Winter Games bid cities to "make the broadest possible use of temporary facilities," the IOC perhaps finally getting about  holding down costs, recognizing that Beijing 2008 ran to at least $40 billion, the Sochi project is north of $50 billion and such sums are entirely unsustainable. The IOC will pick the 2022 site in 2015. The six candidates now in the race: Almaty; Beijing; Oslo; Stockholm; Lviv, Ukraine; and Krakow, Poland.

The IOC is putting up $10 million to develop new anti-doping tests and methods and asking governments to match.

The World Anti-Doping Agency's annual budget is roughly $28 million. So -- a little math here -- $10 million is roughly equal, rounding up, to 36 percent of WADA's entire annual budget.

This shows what happens when sport takes over the WADA presidency -- IOC vice president Craig Reedie becomes WADA president as of Jan. 1 -- and is prepared to make this sort of intelligent investment. Now let's see whether eternally cash-strapped governments, who are always proclaiming they want to see a level playing field and are very public advocates for clean athletes, are willing to step up and match the IOC's $10 million.

More simple math: $20 million would equal just over 71 percent of WADA's annual budget. With that kind of money, the agency could afford to find the best and brightest researchers. Money typically has a way of solving problems that often can seem intractable.

In his role as incoming WADA boss, Reedie, incidentally, would have been just as surprised as anyone by this newest IOC initiative. Bach, in contrast to Rogge, is running the IOC  in the manner of a hands-on chief executive; Rogge had more of the style of a chairman of the board. For his part, Reedie is on his way to snowy Montreal and WADA headquarters for meetings there the next few days; with the promise of at least $10 million, he surely will receive a warm welcome amid the blizzards blanketing the eastern seaboard of North America.

The IOC, meanwhile, also is putting up another $10 million in a bid to protect athletes from "any kind of manipulation or related corruption," a match-fixing initiative. Early next year, Bach said, the IOC will sign an agreement with Interpol to set up a monitoring system aimed at guarding against illegal betting at the Games.

As for the anti-doping initiative, Bach noted that of course today's tests rely on blood and urine samples. What if, he said, there was another way? Hair? Or other cellular matter? "It would of course be very helpful if there would be another test method if we could find … prohibited methods for a longer time," he suggested, adding "This is another issue we want to address in particular."

On another issue, Bach, who during the campaign raised the idea of an Olympic television channel -- a notion that all but killed Chicago's 2016 bid because of the incredible complexities involved with NBC's multibillion-dollar support of the movement -- said the executive board during the retreat "took a first decision" by authorizing a "feasibility study."

The TV plan would be subject to discussion in Sochi and Monaco, according to the IOC.

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.