display
In 2013, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) elected Thomas Bach, a gold medalist in fencing at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, as its ninth president.
This result was not surprising either in terms of person or organization.
Bach had been in the IOC's field of vision as a member of the constituent athletes' commission since the Baden-Baden Olympic Congress in 1981 and was elected in 1991 after Berthold Beitz retired as an active member due to old age.
The IOC, which is traditionally European-centered given the early development of organized sport on this continent, is also much more comfortable with European presidents, and while Bach is his first German president, so far only one non-European (the American Avery Brundage) has held the office.
Bach came to the office well prepared with a multitude of experience at national and international level, not least through his presidency of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and active participation in several IOC commissions, including the evaluation committee, legal committee, and ad hoc -Commissioned on Salt Lake City, Marketing and Television, and on the International Court of Sports and as a member of the influential IOC Executive Board.
display
After the election, there was an immediate change in the IOC's purpose and a new energy in its activities across the Olympic spectrum.
Attracting qualified members to the IOC administration, both internally and externally, has resulted in a level of professional staff with the organizational skills to achieve new, broad and ambitious goals.
Review of activities
Many of these goals emerge from Bach-led comprehensive review and assessment of the full range of activities identified in the 2020 Olympic Agenda.
There were about 40 rubrics in this initiative (according to Bach: 20 plus 20) - not all new, but all focused on the new leadership of an increasingly important international, value-oriented organization.
After the corruption scandal in Salt Lake City from 1998 to 1999 there was considerable progress in matters of governance.
As a result, internal IOC governance was formalized according to the principles of appropriate behavior, openness and transparency.
Nonetheless, it remained clear that the IOC had more work to do and that governance standards in international sport generally had to be improved.
Tokyo games start as scheduled on July 23rd
President Thomas Bach of the International Olympic Committee has confirmed that the Tokyo Olympic Games will take place as planned in the summer.
There is no “plan B”, said Bach in an interview.
Source: SID
display
A familiar mantra developed around the 2020 Olympic Agenda, namely: “Change or be changed.” Many self-government organizations have learned that it is almost always better to develop and implement reforms that you have designed yourself than “solutions” from government or other bodies “Imposed that may not match the real needs of the organization and its particular context.
Three types of members
One of these challenges was IOC membership.
One result of the IOC governance reforms in 2000 was the creation of three new membership classes: one for international sports federations, one for the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and one for Olympic athletes.
Each of these three classes is entitled to 15 members.
The IOC's informal practice has always been to have athletes and sports officials among its members (although no “active” athletes were present until 2000) to ensure that athletic expertise was available to make decisions.
But these IOC members were independent of their other organizations and not bound by their instructions.
The new dynamic is changing governance.
If, for example, an IOC member is proposed today by an international sports association (such as its president) and elected to the IOC, this person may be removed from his international sports association and consequently also from the IOC if the international sports association agrees with the Voting decisions of the member is dissatisfied.
This deprives that person of the very independence that has always been the hallmark of IOC decisions.
display
As the complexity of the Olympic movement grows, the IOC needs to balance its limited membership (115 maximum) with required needs and expertise, while being aware of the diversity and geographic representation that must be taken into account in making its decisions.
This could offset the idiosyncratic nature of some previous decisions.
The IOC, for example, has been largely successful in achieving gender equality on the field of play, but less so with women in leadership positions, although it has made great strides recently in selecting new members and giving them more responsibility.
The IOC must specifically recruit members who are able to make a contribution, and not just wait and see what happens by itself in this regard.
At the IOC headquarters in Lausanne
Source: AFP
Thomas Bach had more than enough challenges to overcome - some predictable, some not, some operational, others political.
The unfortunate legacy conjured up by Russia, which included the botched games in Sochi 2014, the chaotic organization of the Rio de Janeiro 2016 games, which were on the verge of systemic collapse every day, and the surprisingly effective hosting of Pyeongchang 2018 despite the Difficult relationships in the Korean Peninsula and with Russia were far from routine and required careful management.
The same is true of failures in governance in certain sports, including boxing and weightlifting, where the IOC has been forced to intervene and, to some extent, patient, providing opportunities for governance reforms to be passed before moving to more serious consequences .
No one in charge of an important organization can hope to be completely free from criticism of the decisions made, including Bach, especially in his home country Germany.
He was accused of not vigorously pursuing the Russian state doping and thus damaging the reputation of the IOC and of acting against the will of the athletes and their self-appointed representatives.
Criticism of "gigantism"
The long-standing criticism of Olympic “gigantism” and the violation of human rights through the award of the 2022 Winter Games to Beijing through an IOC vote of 44:40 for Beijing against Almaty (Kazakhstan) was also directed against Bach.
All of these issues and their respective contexts are, however, as one can imagine, more nuanced than critics would admit.
Then in 2020 came the Covid-19 pandemic and disrupted what was undoubtedly the best-organized Olympic Games in Tokyo history, which would surpass its extraordinary success of 1964.
This existential threat required skillful coordination with the Japanese authorities to find a solution, which ultimately consisted of postponing the Games for a year.
display
In my respectful opinion, no other country would have had the organizational skills necessary to achieve this.
At the time of this writing, everything indicates that the rescheduled games will take place - thanks to the great Japanese organizers, supported by sponsors, television networks and the whole Olympic family, the latter skillfully coordinated by the IOC under Bach's careful guidance.
Meet now in March
As for the outcome of the upcoming IOC virtual session, March 10-12, from an IOC member's perspective, I can say that we were all very relieved to learn that Bach agreed to do his second and last term to run for office.
However, his decision did not surprise us.
His commitment to the IOC and the Olympic Movement is so great that he would never even consider leaving the IOC leaderless in the midst of such a crisis.
Both in the run-up to Tokyo and in the months after, the controversial subject of Beijing will come up again, and then there is a possible parallel to the Moscow boycott of 1980. At that time, Bach himself was prevented from participating as an athlete because of a US-led boycott.
Today we are just beginning a similar campaign aimed at preventing Olympic athletes from realizing their peaceful dreams.
With all due respect, governments know very well how to clearly express their displeasure with the actions of other governments.
Any political leadership can decline Chinese invitations to Olympic events.
It can instruct its government officials not to attend Olympic events.
It can recall its ambassadors for consultations during the Games.
Term of office until 2025
International trade and other agreements can be enforced and visa requirements can be reviewed.
Governments that pull together can easily take such steps.
And, with all due respect, China can also consider appropriate steps to mitigate its own reputational damage: The world is too interconnected for any country to exist in isolation.
China cannot do that either.
When he hands over the IOC presidency to his successor in 2025, I believe that Thomas Bach will be handed over a better organization than the one he inherited.
It will be a different world, more complex, more divided, more dangerous than ever, but one in which the Olympic sport could be uniquely capable of sustaining dialogue, cooperation and peace.
In retrospect, Bach will at least find that he did indeed live in “interesting times”.
Source: picture alliance / AA
Richard W. Pound is a sports official, former swimmer and member of the IOC, and was twice vice chairman. From 1999 to 2007 he was chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency.