IOC

Straight talk: Michael Payne's 'Toon In!' is required reading

Straight talk: Michael Payne's 'Toon In!' is required reading

Michael Payne, the International Olympic Committee’s former marketing director, and I like to use the same phrase for the chicken-little hysteria that besets far too much of the reporting, particularly in the western media, and especially the American press, in the days and weeks immediately preceding an edition of a Games.

It’s ‘FUD’ — fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Part of this is because the International Olympic Committee does such a tremendously poor job of telling its story — which ought to the easiest story in the world to tell, of the celebration of humanity — and, as a corollary, the story of its history.

Every institution has ups and downs. Olympic history, for sure. When the IOC makes itself as easy to beat as a piñata, of course people are going to take aim.

For all the countless words devoted over more than a century to Olympic history, perhaps no volume better tells the story of what truly is, and has been, what’s what about the Games and the IOC than Payne’s take, Toon In!, a collection of incredible editorial cartoons accompanied by his insightful and often first-hand analysis.

Jacques Rogge, a figure of humanity and stability

Jacques Rogge, a figure of humanity and stability

Jacques Rogge, the eighth president of the International Olympic Committee, has died, the International Olympic Committee announced Sunday, and now closes a chapter in Olympic history.

He was 79.

The fullness of time, as it always does, will tell all.

For now, it is enough to say that Rogge was a bridge — a figure of humanity and stability — between arguably the most important of the IOC presidents, Juan Antonio Samaranch, and the ninth and current president, Thomas Bach, who against considerable currents is vigorously trying to institute a series of reforms aimed at pulling the original 19th century construct that is the IOC into the 21st century.

The IOC's new way brings the done deal of Brisbane for 2032

The IOC's new way brings the done deal of Brisbane for 2032

TOKYO — The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday confirmed Brisbane, Australia, for the 2032 Summer Games. No surprise. This deal was done months ago.

In contrast to the prior city selection process, global spectacles that would match cities against each other, contests running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, this was the IOC’s — and president Thomas Bach’s — new way of getting the job done.

Quietly, efficiently, a meet-up of a qualified city and an interested franchisor.

Will Brisbane turn out to be great? Who knows? Will the Australians turn another bit of magic, like Sydney in 2000? Who knows? What we do know is that Brisbane and Australia are secure enough, now, for the IOC and Bach to say, OK, let’s do this.

And that’s the thing — security.

Ten weeks to go, and are even Hello Kitty and Super Mario wondering: really?

Ten weeks to go, and are even Hello Kitty and Super Mario wondering: really?

Every day, those of us whose lives are in some way shaped by the Olympics get asked the same question — is Tokyo going to happen?

Let’s be clear. despite any fantasy to the contrary, I am in no way, shape or form an Olympic athlete. I could blame the two shoulder surgeries in the past seven months but, nah. Not even a working left shoulder would make me world-class in anything except maybe this — typing and thinking and, believe me, many of my critics and detractors would say I am farthest thing from, and thanks as always for your thoughts and prayers.

So with admiration for the thousands of athletes whose hopes and dreams have been on hold for the past year — absent something freaky, between now and July 23, freaky in this context meaning apocalyptic, there will be Games in Tokyo.

As IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Wednesday in a video press briefing, “We are confident we can deliver good Games and we will continue working toward that.”

Epic, colossal, like -- what? IOC's latest esports misstep

Epic, colossal, like -- what? IOC's latest esports misstep

Let’s imagine the college-age version of me. I maybe thought i was something special. This was testosterone talking. The mirror said something different. So did my college friends.

Let’s imagine further that we walked into an establishment. Incredibly, at the bar was sitting the one and only Christie Brinkley.

What to say? What to do? Hey, I’m something special! “Uh, hello? What are you doing here?”

Weak, right? Smacks of desperation? Despair?

Something like what the International Olympic Committee put out a few days ago when it announced it was hurriedly getting into the esports business with a series before Tokyo 2020 — a weak, ill-thought-out, ill-conceived, desperate, dumb approach. Like, what are you doing here?

How to put sport at the service of humankind

How to put sport at the service of humankind

The key purpose of the Olympic movement is not to make money. It is “to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind.”

Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, has many times said the Tokyo Olympics can — should — serve as a “beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times.”

This week, the IOC is due to reveal what it is calling the Playbook, the layers of protocols and policies it has for months been developing in a bid to pull off the Tokyo Games, Olympic and Paralympic, amid the global coronavirus pandemic. The Olympics are due to open July 23. The Paralympics are scheduled to open Aug. 24.

The Playbook, the IOC has made clear, is about trying to create safe bubbles in Tokyo. It will be revised — and revised again — as July 23 draws near.

The Playbook is essential. But there needs to be more.

Bach's legacy is upon him: the world needs not just leadership but his humanity

Bach's legacy is upon him: the world needs not just leadership but his humanity

The International Olympic Committee is due this week to hold its policy-making executive board meeting. it comes more or less with six months to go until July 23, when the Tokyo Olympics are due to commence. To make those six months feel all the more real: that’s 26 Fridays.

In March, the IOC president, Thomas Bach, is going to be re-elected to a four-year term. He has served eight already, once again more or less. These last four will be his last in the office.

Starting with this board meeting, Bach has a unique opportunity. These first eight years have been marked by a succession of crises, some unforeseeable — the Russian doping scandal, the organizational disaster that was Rio 2016, the almost-didn’t-happen PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games.

This space has many times been critical of Bach. His Agenda 2020, for instance? Not much there there. All the same, throughout these first eight years, and this is difficult indeed for Bach’s many critics — some voluble indeed — to comprehend, he has shown genuine leadership. Now he must do more. His legacy is at stake. He has the chance, starting now, to define that legacy rather than let others define it for him.

Does anyone at the USOPC realize there's a world out there beyond the 50 states?

Does anyone at the USOPC realize there's a world out there beyond the 50 states?

Does anyone at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee really think through some of the things they announce? Do they understand there is a world out there beyond the 50 states?

Do they care? Do they understand this is why the rest of the world often — and for good reason — thinks the Americans are self-righteous, self-centered and deserving of approbation and scorn?

The rest of the world hates it when we imperiously and sanctimoniously climb up and seize what we believe is the moral high ground and tell all the little people — indeed, lecture them — about what to do.

When are we ever going to stop? Ever?

IOC must 'urgently' re-do esports strategy, this time for real

IOC must 'urgently' re-do esports strategy, this time for real

Six months ago, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach published a remarkable white paper about the state of Olympics, as he saw it, amid the pandemic. More remarkably, it drew — and yet more remarkably still, over the months since has drawn — comparatively little media attention. Like almost zero.

The think piece was called — you’ve got to love this title — “Olympism and Corona.”

If Roger Goodell wrote such a piece about the state of the NFL, or Adam Silver about the NBA, odds are it would be the stuff of hot takes on sports radio and cable TV, and for weeks. Here was Bach thoughtfully trying to sort out the new realities of the most complex puzzle the world knows, the Olympic Games, in reaction to the shifting realities of a global pandemic. Reaction: mostly crickets.

He deserved better, particularly because in the fourth copy block, entitled “Social Impact,” third paragraph, the IOC president signaled to the entire world — if, like, anyone was paying attention, which obviously they were not — that esports ought to be taken seriously. He used the word “urgently.” The IOC almost never uses the word “urgently.” This time, though, it did.

This year of living dangerously, and surely the Olympics can and should be reimagined

This year of living dangerously, and surely the Olympics can and should be reimagined

For the past six weeks, this space has been dark. For the past six weeks, per doctor’s orders, the mandate has been to do nothing — or, to be practical, as little as possible. Thus, for six weeks, instead of writing, the mission has been to read and read and read, and in particular everything about the state of the Olympic movement.

You know what? I have been reporting, writing and observing the Olympic movement since late 1998, since the break of the Salt Lake corruption scandal. That’s 22 years, with 10 editions of the Games. Fair question now, after taking in everything over these past six weeks: when has the Olympic landscape ever been in a more precarious position?

Answer: in my experience, this is the worst.

Without hyperbole: the situation now bears echoes of the movement’s darkest days from the 1970s.