In banishing the IBA, is the IOC on the right - or wrong - side of history?

In banishing the IBA, is the IOC on the right - or wrong - side of history?

If Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association, was named, say, Bill Jones, and he was not Russian, then all of everything that has been at the root of the problem with the IBA and the International Olympic Committee would very likely have been solved long ago. 

Instead, in a historic decision, the IOC membership, by a vote of 69-1, decided Thursday to banish the IBA into the Olympic wilderness – or, in its formal language, withdraw the federation’s recognition.

The vote was predictable. Under president Thomas Bach, the members rarely if ever deviate from the recommendations of the IOC executive board.

The IOC dates to 1894. The vote Thursday is believed to be the first time in those 128 years it has severed ties with a sport’s federation. The action means zero for boxing in Paris for 2024 and Los Angeles for 2028. Boxing will be on the program. Who will run it? That’s a question.

The bigger question: will the IOC ultimately be proven on the right side of history?

PGA-LIV settle: 'stunning' only if you believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny or unicorns

PGA-LIV settle: 'stunning' only if you believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny or unicorns

There’s an old saying that’s especially apt in the wake of Tuesday’s news that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have settled, a purportedly “stunning” announcement. 

It’s stunning only if you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or unicorns. 

Because, as ever, money talks and BS walks. 

Here’s the saying: 

When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.

Here's hoping a U.S. panel on the 'state' of the Olympics thinks -- big

Here's hoping a U.S. panel on the 'state' of the Olympics thinks -- big

The United States Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has empowered a Commission to study the “state” of the U.S. Olympics and Paralympics.

Rather than surrendering to an avalanche of easy jokes, having covered the “state” of this enterprise for 25 years, having myself triggered the last major reconstruction amid Congressional hearings of the then-USOC board structure in 2003, sparked by a story I wrote in late 2002 for the Los Angeles Times, let’s simply note that the new USOPC board chair, Gene Sykes, is a man of uncommon decency and intelligence, so there’s hope.

At the same time, it’s not clear whether Congress, sparked by the Larry Nassar scandal, wants 1/ yet again to point fingers, or 2/ a report that like many things in Washington amounts to a lot of words but says nothing because 3/ something performative allows Congress to go, yep, we did something because we all know Larry Nassar was a really bad guy and, oh, China almost beat us in the medals count at the Tokyo Olympics, and what is that about?

Yo, Adrian: can the IBA and IOC get to — détente?

Yo, Adrian: can the IBA and IOC get to — détente?

In the iconic 1985 ahead-of-its-time Cold War-era cinematic classic, Rocky IV, Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren do battle in the boxing ring.

Stallone of course is the American Rocky Balboa. Early in the film, Lundgren, cast as the emotionless automaton Soviet Ivan Drago, beats the former heavyweight champ Apollo Creed, ultimately to death, in an exhibition bout. “If he dies, he dies,” Drago says.

Rocky decides to challenge Drago. He sets up camp in the Soviet Union on Christmas Day. He does roadwork in deep snow and works out using ancient equipment. Finally, the match. Predictably, Drago gets the better of it early, only for Rocky to come back. In the 15th and final round, Rocky knocks Drago out, avenging his friend Apollo’s death and, of course, affirming truth, justice and the American way, but never mind that.

During the fight, the once-hostile Soviet crowd, seeing how Rocky had held his ground, began to cheer for him. After winning, he grabs the mic and says, “During this fight, I’ve seen a lot of changing, the way you felt about me, and in the way I felt about you … I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”

‘What’s this?’ — it’s the hope of sport

‘What’s this?’ — it’s the hope of sport

DOHA, Qatar — As she came off the tatami in delighted shock at what she had just done, Inbar Lanir of Israel looked at her coach, Shany Hershko, and said, “What’s this?”

Lanir had just thrown France’s Audrey Tcheuméo, the Rio 2016 Games silver medalist, to become the 2023 judo world champion in the women’s 78-kilo class. 

A few moments later, in this Arab nation, they lifted the Israeli flag and played the Israeli anthem, Hatikva — it means “the hope” — and Lanir, alone at the top of the podium, wiped tears from her eyes. These were tears of joy. Of happiness. And wonder.

This is the hope of sport — that it can transcend political differences. Because when they played the anthem and lifted the flag, it was — normal. Everything was totally, completely normal. 

Money talks, always: Where is Peng Shuai? China. Where is WTA headed back? China

Money talks, always: Where is Peng Shuai? China. Where is WTA headed back? China

The women’s professional tennis tour is headed back to China, announcing Thursday the end of the boycott linked to concerns over former player Peng Shuai.

Wait! What about the moral high ground? The pre-Beijing 2022 Winter Games lecturing by so many in the West to China, repeated as gospel by willing journalistic interlocutors? The veneration over the past several months of WTA chairman and chief executive Steve Simon, who as recently as last month was saying the women’s tour would return to China only when 1/ it could directly contact Peng and 2/ the Chinese authorities conducted a “full, fair and transparent” investigation?

What about the self-appointed high priests from the many tribes of the reflexively high-dudgeon and sanctimoniously judgmental?

The issue is not boxing. Right or wrong, fair or not, it's Umar Kremlev

The issue is not boxing. Right or wrong, fair or not, it's Umar Kremlev

It has been nearly eight years now since Marius Vizer, then head of what was called SportAccord, launched one of the most memorable inside-the-Olympic-world attacks of all time — if not the grand prize winner, honestly —  on the International Olympic Committee, saying at a gathering in Sochi, Russia, that the IOC was running a system he called “expired, outdated, wrong, unfair and not at all transparent.”

Vizer, then and still also head of the International Judo Federation, speaks his mind. To this day. Nonetheless, he and IOC president Thomas Bach have, at least for public consumption, significantly patched up differences. And for the past eight years, no one, at least inside the Olympic landscape, has sought so directly and forcefully to take on Bach and the IOC.

Cue Umar Kremlev and the International Boxing Association.

War? Good for absolutely nothing. Myopic focus on one, the "globalization of indifference'

War? Good for absolutely nothing. Myopic focus on one, the "globalization of indifference'

So much of our world is mired in inhumanity. 

The west seemingly can only see Ukraine. But the past 10 years have brought a paradigm shift, one that is now all but hiding in plain sign — one about which the International Olympic Committee, to its credit, recognized and, for once, has been ahead of trend.

If only the most vocal, the most strident, politicians in the west would wake up and see what is right there.

If only the western world would, as an NPR report in December acknowledged, devote perhaps more than 1% of its media coverage to what’s what.

If only these politicians and the media could confront, would at least acknowledge, the bias and the flat-out racism. Because all human beings deserve a common measure of dignity. Everyone.

As the president of the International Judo Federation, Marius Vizer, said in opening arguably that sport’s preeminent tour event, the Paris Grand Slam, over the weekend, “War and politics cannot divide sport and cannot divide us. Sport and religion bring the most important values of society, which promote principles of respect, solidarity and peace. Sport is the last bridge, which today in the world’s confrontations can be a messenger for peace and unity and can work for reconciliation.”

It's about the Russians, again. But it's so not. Wake up, people: our world is about China

It's about the Russians, again. But it's so not. Wake up, people: our world is about China

The Paris Olympics are due to open in July 2024. That’s 17, 18 months from now. Already, though, it seems to be all about Russia. 

For the past 10 years, it seems like it has been about Russia: Sochi 2014 and the matter of the country’s laws. The seemingly endless doping controversies. Then, of course, the invasion of Ukraine just days after the close of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games.

The International Olympic Committee’s overarching mission is to try to “unite the entire world in peaceful competition.” The entire world means everyone, no exceptions, and this is why already, 17, 18 months away, there’s so much discussion, to and fro, about the notion of getting the Russians to Paris as neutrals.

Except, the focus on the Russians, 17, 18 months away entirely misses the point.

Again: less screaming, less vitriol. Kamila Valieva is just 16

Again: less screaming, less vitriol. Kamila Valieva is just 16

From the get-go, it has been entirely unclear why so much vitriol has been directed at Kamila Valieva. 

She is still just 16. 

Here is yet another call for everyone — repeat, everyone — to dial down the rhetoric, the anger, the urge to put Valieva front and center as proxy for everything Russian or Putin and the war. She is none of those things.

She is a 16-year-old figure skater who, when last seen, was performing at the Russian national championships with a charming down-to-the-move celebration of Jenna Ortega’s viral Wednesday Addams dance from the hit Netflix series.