USOC: 'an exciting new time'

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- After Larry Probst and Scott Blackmun had given first-rate speeches to the hundreds gathered here at the Antlers Hilton hotel for the U.S. Olympic Committee's annual assembly, the two senior USOC officials, with a gaggle of reporters in tow, found a small room just off the big ballroom for an impromptu news conference. This was the Jackson Room, named not for the seventh president but for a 19th-century Colorado photographer. A big wooden table dominated Mr. William Jackson's room. Blackmun took one of the blue chairs on one side of the table, Probst the chair right next to him.

Probst, in his shirt and tie, jacket off, leaned back in the chair, waiting for the first question. The two of them hadn't yet said a word in this little clutch but their body language said everything: relaxed, calm, comfortable, confident, in charge.

What a difference a year makes.

And what buzz around what traditionally has been a lackluster, even dreary, event.

This year, the scene at the assembly and its related programs was marked with energy, enthusiasm and a distinct sense of inclusion, from the opening reception Wednesday (a packed house swarming the bruschetta and the fried shrimp, and how about the support of that Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau!) through the wrap-up meetings Saturday.

The catch phrase that appeared on the literature the USOC distributed here read "one team," and that sentiment seemed to strike home.

One example from among many: Dick Ebersol, the NBC Universal Sports & Olympics chairman who last autumn was a vocal USOC critic, delivered the keynote address Friday night. Probst introduced him as "our good friend and partner."

Another example: Mark Emmert, the incoming NCAA president, made a joint appearance Thursday morning with Blackmun and while they didn't announce any major initiatives, it didn't matter; the point was that the guys in charge of the USOC and NCAA were on stage together.

"I have said this repeatedly: I am more enthusiastic about this organization and this movement today than I have been at any point in the last 10 years," Dave Ogrean, the executive director of USA Hockey, said at a cocktail party Friday night.

"The best presentation I have heard in my 32 years of association with the USOC by its leaders," a former USOC spokesman, Mike Moran, posted on his Facebook page, referring to the Probst and Blackmun speeches to the assembly. "Candid, on the money and substantial."

Donna de Varona, the Olympic swim gold medalist turned sportscaster and women's- and athletes'-rights activist, called the meeting the "most inclusive, visionary and inspirational gathering in the history of the U.S. movement."

A pause: the USOC's history is filled with much-documented starts, stops, missteps and missed opportunities.

One also must note that the success of the moment hardly guarantees anything in the future. See above: USOC starts, stops, missteps, etc.

Even so, this assembly made for a great convention, and it would thus be irresponsible for the reasonable observer not to relate the obvious: There is a renewed sense of optimism and can-do within and around the USOC, and it's primarily because of leadership. That means Probst, the USOC chairman, and Blackmun, the chief executive.

"Larry has not only found his role but his voice," Doug Logan, the outgoing USA Track & Field executive, said in an interview. "And Scott is not only doing the right things and saying the right things but saying them with the right inflection."

From the daïs Friday evening, Ebersol, referring to Probst and Blackmun, said, "Let me say very clearly: congratulations for the start of this incredible turnaround. We are very lucky we have your leadership. And we hope we have it for a very long time."

It was last Oct. 2 that the International Olympic Committee delivered its humiliating verdict on Chicago's 2016 chances -- out, despite the personal lobbying in Copenhagen by President Obama himself, in the first round, with only 18 votes. Later that day, Rio de Janeiro would win going away.

A lot of things that had bubbling for a lot of time led to that vote, which Probst in his speech here Friday called, among other terms, "devastating." Some of it involved the USOC's complex relationship with the IOC. Some of it revolved around the USOC itself.

The criticism and turmoil that ensued afterward produced weeks, indeed months, of reflection and re-engineering -- institutional and, for Probst in particular, personal.

Stephanie Streeter, the USOC's acting chief executive, stepped down; Blackmun, who had been a candidate for the CEO job nearly 10 years ago, got the job this time and said Friday that "in retrospect I am grateful to be standing here now instead of then."

Why? Because then the USOC "wasn't structured to succeed." Now, Blackmun said in his assembly speech, "I am filled with optimism about the future of our American Olympic family, and in particular about the future of the USOC."

In part that's because of Blackmun himself. He is modest and speaks softly. The staff loves him.

In part that's because of Probst. He weathered furious criticism after Copenhagen, then -- as Blackmun put it -- "stepped forward to listen" and learn. As the senior USOC official, and thus its key protocol figure, he has since been traveling the world, meeting with IOC members, with plans in the coming weeks to go to Mexico, Japan, China and Serbia, among others.

"It's a relationship business," Blackmun, who is also a frequent flier, said. "We have to start by being present."

Finally, there's the way Probst and Blackmun work together. To simplify something that by its nature is more complex, indeed laden with nuance: Probst hired Blackmun to be in charge, and Probst lets Blackmun run the USOC.

The two get together by phone every Tuesday morning. Of course they trade emails and make other calls as warranted. "There is a high level of communication between us," Probst said in Mr. Jackson's room, adding, "Having said that, he is the CEO and I have no intention of being the CEO of the USOC."

In his speech, Probst said, "We are being honest and open and present and I believe we are on the right track," and while he was referring specifically to the USOC's international outreach, he could have been speaking of so much more.

Ebersol said, "I knew I was coming here for what is really an exciting new time for the United States Olympic Committee and for the Olympic movement in the United States. Just think: a year ago that would have been unthinkable, absolutely unthinkable."

The USOC's "new direction" (for real)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A year after Chicago's "devastating" 2016 loss, a regrouped U.S. Olympic Committee can rightly call the past 12 months extraordinarily challenging and yet "one of the best" years ever, USOC chairman Larry Probst asserted Friday. In addresses to the annual USOC assembly, Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun pointed to, among other accomplishments, 37 medals won by American athletes at the Vancouver Games, key top-tier sponsor deals, a far-reaching study aimed at re-making the USOC board, re-engagement with domestic groups such as national governing body officials and intensive relationship-building internationally.

Blackmun called it a "new direction," one that he told the hundreds gathered for the USOC's annual assembly ought to make "us all incredibly proud to say we are part of the United States Olympic Committee."

The tone and tenor, along with the substance itself, of Friday's remarks served as an unveiling of sorts of a USOC with clearly articulated plans -- even, in a marked change given the USOC's historic zigs and zags, a remarkably defined vision, both near- and long-term.

All of it, and in particular the vision thing, both Probst and Blackmun made clear, is rooted in a thorough re-evaluation tied to Chicago's first-round defeat last Oct. 2 in Copenhagen in the International Olympic Committee's 2016 voting.

Rio de Janeiro won. Chicago, despite a first-rate technical plan and unprecedented leadership that extended to the White House -- President Obama even making a last-minute personal appeal in Copenhagen to the IOC -- was unceremoniously sent off in the first round, with only 18 votes.

In some of the most frank comments on the matter ever delivered from senior USOC leadership on the matter, Probst on Friday said Chicago's loss was not just "devastating" but  "shocking."

He also said, "It was a bid of incredible technical merit and social promise. And yet we lost tragically in Round One."

The loss, and a wave of ferocious criticism it unleashed, some from NGB officials, "opened my eyes to the fact that we had serious problems within our own family" and convinced him that "nothing short of a full transformation in our relationships and our governance was needed," Probst said.

He said, "The situation called for a year of real action, which I would describe as significant and sustainable change."

Thus:

Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue was commissioned to lead a study that likely will see the USOC board expanded here from 11 to 15 members, among other changes.

In January, Blackmun was hired as chief executive.

Probst began traveling the world -- now with a clear understanding that in the  nuanced world of IOC politics, the USOC board chairman holds senior protocol status and must be the American point person.

The USOC and IOC recently announced, in the aftermath of worldwide sponsor deals cut with Proctor & Gamble and Dow Chemical, a deal under which the USOC would help underwrite certain so-called administrative "Games costs." The amount, which neither side would publicly confirm: $18 million.

That deal sets the table for more complex negotiations aimed at resolving a long-standing tensions between the USOC and IOC over the USOC's singular shares of certain IOC revenues. The USOC gets 12.75 percent of the U.S. broadcast rights fee package and 20 percent of worldwide marketing revenues; some have called those shares unfair.

No timetable has been set for resolution of the revenue-splits dispute, Probst said Friday.

Moreover, Blackmun said, the USOC has no plan to bid for the Games any time soon. Asked in an informal news conference if he could definitively rule out a 2020 Summer Games bid -- the IOC will pick the 2020 site in 2013 -- Blackmun declined to do so but called the notion "highly unlikely."

Blackmun, in his address to the assembly, also unveiled a wide-ranging strategic plan that called, among other matters, for the USOC to develop relationships with government leaders in Washington, to formally define its Paralympic commitment and to ensure return on investment on the millions spent on projects such as the Olympic Training Centers scattered throughout the country.

"First and foremost," Blackmun said, "we have to earn the credibility and trust of our constituents and partners," adding a moment later, "We lost that credibility and we lost that trust."

As Probst, a few moments earlier, had said, "In many ways, last year was a year of earning trust. Trust doesn't happen because of titles or past accomplishments. Trust doesn't come from promises. Trust belongs to the province of relationships. You build trust by earning respect, and developing friendships, both at home and abroad.

"And I think the journey we've begun is headed in the direction of real trust and genuine respect."

Dara is back, and that's good

True enough, over the past year or so Dara Torres hadn't committed herself to competitive swimming. Not in any way. Not with the knee surgery, the shoulder surgery, the book tour, the motivational speaking, the travel -- and, most important, the being a mom to daughter Tessa, who's now 4 1/2. Then again, Dara secretly probably knew deep down all along that vying for London and 2012 was her destiny. And here is the telling clue: All this time, she kept herself in the athlete drug-testing pool.

"So if I decided to swim again," she was saying the other day on the telephone, "people wouldn't question me," wouldn't be able to suggest that she'd had a lengthy window to do whatever or use whatever.

And, she said, "They were very diligent in continuing to test me."

Earlier this month, on the "Live with Regis and Kelly" TV show, Dara said she's back in the game. She said she intends to try to make the London 2012 Summer Games, a turn that's good for her, good for swimming, good for the Olympic movement.

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.

Judo Princess, world champion

When she was just 12, Kayla Harrison gave herself a nickname: Judo Princess. It's still part of her email address. The princess fights tough. Now she's world champion.

At judo's world championships earlier this month in Tokyo, Kayla Harrison, now 20 years old, beat 19-year-old Mayra Aguiar of Brazil in sudden-death overtime to win the 78-kilogram (172-pound) division.

Her victory shines a spotlight on a sport that may be poised to be one of the American success stories come London and 2012. At the same time, it also shows just how long and uncertain the road to an Olympic medal can be for athletes in sports such as judo, where you sure don't do it for money but you indisputably need some amount of money to even have a shot at making it.

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.

Sydney: still the best-ever

The night that Cathy Freeman won the 400 at the Sydney Olympics, some 118,000 people jammed into Olympic Stadium. Down on the field, she would later say, the sound and light and noise was almost overwhelming. So, too, the expectation. She said it was like trying to get your bearings and finding yourself in electric jello. Just off the track, in a VIP box near the finish line, the chief organizer of those 2000 Sydney Games, Michael Knight, was sharing the evening with a number of influential aboriginal activists, among them Lyall Munro, a campaigner for aboriginal rights since the 1960s.

Cathy Freeman, in Lane Six, was not first as the field swung around the final turn, the stadium keening with sound. But then she turned on the jets. She won convincingly. And as she crossed the line, as all those in Knight's box gave in to cheers and hugs, they noticed that Lyall Munro had tears in his eyes. They were tears of joy.

"In 50 seconds," Lyall Munro told Michael Knight that night, a rough estimate of how long it took Cathy Freeman to complete one revolution around the track, "that young woman has done for my people than I've done in a lifetime."

The tenth anniversary of the Sydney Olympics arrived Wednesday. Already so long ago -- there have been five editions of the Games since, Summer or Winter -- and yet those 2000 Games remain for many the best Olympics ever.

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.

It's supposed to be fun

Ted Ligety jumps cars in the summer, and it's funny, in the same way the "Jackass" movies are funny. Maybe some moms don't think "Jackass" and its ilk are all that funny. But pretty much most 14-year-old boys, and by extension most males -- hilarious. In a world of cubicle-dwelling, desk-jockeying, Power Point-presenting, 9-to-5 drudge, here's the Ligety alternative: You're in New Zealand for summer ski camp because it's winter down there. You're hanging out with a bunch of your good friends, who are also ski racers. Everyone loves skiing. But no one can ski all the time. So what to do in your down time?

You find an old car. Out in the sticks, you build a dirt ramp. You run the car over the ramp, again and again, thrashing it until, finally, it expires. You laugh and you laugh and you laugh some more, because it's fun and it's funny.

Is that living the dream, or what?

Click here to read the rest at TeamUSA.org.

USATF drops Logan - but why?

Anyone who has ever studied a little history discovers the "star chamber," the ancient English panel. It purported to deliver justice. In fact, its verdicts were often rooted in petty politics and court intrigue. Now comes the dismissal of Doug Logan, chief executive  at USA Track & Field. The action was announced Monday after a meeting over the weekend in Las Vegas of the USATF board of directors.

Sayeth the privy counsellors, figuratively now: Off with his head!

Um, for what, exactly?

It's not at all clear.

Which is why it's so perplexing.

And why it deserves to draw the most intense scrutiny -- from the U.S. Olympic Committee; from track and field's worldwide governing body, the International Assn. of Athletics Federations; and from anyone and everyone who cares about what traditionally has proven the No. 1 sport in the Summer Games.

USATF has been riven for years by a welter of competing agendas.

Certain personalities have long exercised a disproportionate influence in the way things get done.

Complicating the situation, the division between the volunteer board and paid staff  has not been always respected and, indeed, observed.

A reform plan -- launched at the 2008 USATF annual meeting in Reno, Nev. -- was supposed to have gone a long way toward solving all of that.

But the board's action over the weekend is bound -- and ought -- to raise questions about whether, in fact, that is the case.

Logan, with extensive experience in promoting sports and music, was hired 26 months ago to be a change agent.

What, you hire a guy to effect change and he effects change and you don't like it because he effects change? Is that, simply put, what happened?

The USATF-issued statement announcing Logan's departure was preposterously vague, board chair Stephanie Hightower saying in it that the board had decided it was "in our best interests to engage different leadership to move the sport forward."

In a telephone interview Monday, Hightower said, "Just give us a fair chance."

Asked why the board had opted to take the controversial move of cutting ties with Logan, she said, "I wouldn't categorize it as a controversial decision.

"I would categorize it as the board has a fiduciary responsibility and oversight responsibility to make sure the organization is moving forward in an aggressive and accelerated manner."

Hightower is exceedingly intelligent. She is an accomplished professional. Taking her at her word and giving her, and the board, a fair chance: what does what she said mean?

Specifics, please.

If it's the case that Logan was deemed to have failed in regards to USATF's financial stewardship, how so?

Because he didn't bring in sponsors left and right? In only 26 months?

If that's the basis of the decision, is that really a valid point given that the listless American economy is drawing comparisons to the 1930s?

Is someone else supposed to do better? With not even a year to go before the world championships in South Korea? With under two to go until the 2012 London Olympics?

At the risk of seeming skeptical after a dozen years of covering USATF, mindful that post-Reno the federation had asserted the intent to be more about boring institutional governance stuff with fewer personality-politics dramas:

If the decision was that someone else simply had to be brought in, wouldn't that necessarily suggest that a new person would face a steep learning curve?

Unless that person is already well connected within track and field circles, right?

Which would suggest, wouldn't it, that he or she might already know well some or all of the important people within USATF?

Now: would those sorts of connections inspire more or less confidence in the ability of the new person to do his or her job without interference or manipulation?

At any rate:

If financial stewardship isn't the central issue in Logan's tenure, what then might it be? That U.S. teams botched the relays at the 2008 Games and the 2009 worlds? Logan put in a plan to fix that. That the U.S. team could and should win more medals in London than it did in Beijing? Logan put in a plan to fix that.

Any reasonable observer knows full well that the performance plan is on track for London and 2012.

What, then, could it be?

Moreover, why take such a dramatic step -- knowing full well that it's bound to raise these sorts of questions -- without providing answers?

You don't have to be an expert in sign-reading to understand the signal of support the IAAF had sent Friday, just one day before Logan appeared before the USATF board in Vegas, the worldwide governing body announcing it had appointed Logan to its "School/Youth Commission."

Who cares whether that commission is effective or even meaningful? The meaning is that Logan had the support of IAAF president Lamine Diack. And USATF wants to take him on because -- why?

In perhaps the same vein:

USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun said Monday in a phone call, "There has been a lot of instability in the Olympic movement -- this is our third Summer NGB to replace an executive director in the last three months," track and field joining triathlon and fencing, "and I'm concerned about that."

For his part, Logan said Monday on the phone that he could say little because he was "in a dialogue with USATF about my separation," and "out of respect for that process I don't want to discuss what's going on."

He did say he truly loved the sport: "I am reminded of the Eagles and 'Hotel California': 'You can check out but you can never leave,' " adding, "I am extremely proud of my record. In the blink of an eye, 26 months, we went through extraordinary change, some of which I thought was lasting … and difficult to go through.

"… I will," he said, "have more things to say at a future time."

One can hardly wait for a full airing. The books, after all, assert that the star chamber is just so much history.

U.S. women's water polo - a success story

You watch water polo, arguably the most difficult and demanding team sport in the Summer Olympics, and you see what looks more or less like a soccer or basketball game play out in a pool. And that's true enough. But so much more is going on below the surface, if only you know where to look.

It's a little bit like what's going on with the U.S. women's water polo team the past two years, one of the great success stories on the American scene -- to be clear, not just the Olympic scene but beyond, one of the best stories in all of American sports.

To read more, click through to teamusa.org: http://bit.ly/c3Uh1N

A win-win all around

Adorned with works by the famed glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, the bar at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Singapore sits just off the lobby, to the right as you walk in. Management insists on keeping the bar chilled to levels inspired by a meat locker. Drinks were crazy expensive ($13 for a pot of green tea). The piano could be just a touch loud at night. Even so, the bar was without question the place to see and be seen during the recently concluded Youth Olympic Games.

Some number from the United States Olympic Committee proved bar regulars during the Youth Games. Indeed, let it be noted that the USOC crew actually shut the bar down late one night.

So Thursday's announcement that the USOC and the International Olympic Committee had come to an agreement over the USOC share of what in Olympic jargon are called "Games costs" comes not as a surprise. Instead, it's the logical extension of what happens when you invest in relationships and in playing the game the way it has to be played within the wider Olympic movement.

Though terms were not formally announced, the USOC will pay about $18 million to help pay for anti-doping programs, operations of the Court of Arbitration for Sport and other administrative costs.

To be clear: the agreement is a win-win all around.

It's unequivocally a win for the USOC.

Why? Because it underscores the willingness on the part of chairman Larry Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun to reach out to the IOC. Each has said repeatedly in recent months that they would deal with the IOC in good faith; the deal makes real that talk.

Probst and Blackmun worked seamlessly as a team, and both deserve credit for that, too.

Probst, for his part, gets it now -- how he, as the chairman, and thus the senior American figure on the scene, is the one who absolutely has to be at certain meetings with certain IOC figures for any progress to be achieved.

Blackmun is the one appropriately hammering out the particulars.

Moreover, the USOC's annual assembly comes in two weeks, in Colorado Springs. Now Probst and Blackmun will get to stand up before the USOC's many stakeholders and announce they have delivered on their promise to make progress with the IOC.

At the same time, the announcement Thursday indisputably marks a major win for the IOC, too.

Why? Because it acknowledges that the Olympic movement is stronger and better off all around when the USOC and IOC are in it together, and that the IOC is -- without question -- committed to that proposition.

IOC leadership now gets to go to a major conference in October in Acapulco, at which its policy-making executive board will mingle with officials from the more than 200 national Olympic committees from around the world, and announce progress in the relationship with the USOC.

It's why the bar scene in Singapore proved so intriguing.

It's not that the deal itself was struck in the bar.

It's the recognition of how things get done in the Olympic scene, where relationships are everything.

Indeed, the deal that was announced Thursday marks the culmination of meetings that began in Denver in 2009, then continued in Vancouver at the Winter Games earlier this year, and then again in Switzerland earlier this summer, and then came together in Singapore.

The outlines of the deal were largely worked out in Vancouver.

Intriguingly, it's more or less a deal of the sort that could have been worked out five or six years ago -- which would have completely re-framed a great many things, including perhaps Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Games, an effort that all along had to contend with some level of contentiousness within the wider IOC membership about the USOC's finances.

Chicago was booted in the first round of IOC voting last October; Rio de Janeiro won.

So why did the deal that was largely framed up in Vancouver had to wait a few more months to be finalized?

The answer: to develop the two IOC top-tier sponsorship deals that were announced this summer, with Proctor & Gamble and with Dow Chemical, and in particular the Dow deal. P&G was already a USOC sponsor; adding Dow, though, gives the USOC new revenues, and allows for considerably more flexibility.

Now the focus shifts to Part Two of the USOC-IOC finances -- the USOC's 20 percent share of worldwide marketing revenues and 12.75 percent cut of U.S. broadcast rights fees.

The two sides agreed in Denver that they would commence negotiations in 2013 on a new formula that would kick off in 2020.

The announcement Thursday enables them to start those talks sooner.

And start sooner they must. It's in everyone's interest for Part Two to get resolved while Jacques Rogge is the IOC president; his term expires in 2013.

See you in the bar in Acapulco, amigos.

2018 Youth Games - calling Mr. T

SINGAPORE -- If it is at all possible that any of the movies in the Rocky series qualifies as cinematic achievement, then perhaps the line uttered by Mr. T, playing Clubber Lang in 1982's Rocky III, stands alone as one of the fine lines in movie history. It is, of course, "I pity the fool!"

These first-ever Youth Games, which closed Thursday to a resounding fireworks show, were by virtually every operational measure a resounding success. The next Summer edition comes in Nanjing, China, in 2014 -- where, as here, there will be little concern about spending money. The Singapore 2010 budget, in American dollars at current exchange rates: $285 million, three times the original estimate, the government's sports minister confirmed Thursday.

After Singapore and then China, who wants to put on these Games in 2018? The International Olympic Committee won't decide for a little while yet. But it is tempting even now to declare: I pity the fool!

Unless and until the U.S. Olympic Committee resolves its longstanding revenue-related dispute with the International Olympic Committee, there's zero reason for the United States to consider a YOG bid. Not that the USOC is asking for my advice but here it is: don't do it.

Plus, there's no reason for the USOC to get into the YOG game. Someone, somewhere will be only too glad to stand up and take on 2018. Better they do it than the U.S. run the risk of following 2010 and 2014.

Nothing is perfect, and these Singapore Youth Games weren't, hardly to be expected from a new initiative. Even so, the glitches were just that -- glitches.

As a consequence, it's almost too bad for the IOC that this first YOG, as it is commonly referred to in Olympic-speak, was held here.

Why? Because Singapore organizers set the bar so high that what's next may be all too predictable -- a rush by successive organizing committees to out-do the one before, and thus a challenge to the very ethos that animated YOG, and ought to keep doing so.

YOG is not the Summer Games. It is not the Winter Games.

It is, instead, a sports festival for teenagers overlaid with a cultural and educational program.

In these two weeks, it took huge steps toward creating an identity distinct from the traditional Summer Games.

It is, as the IOC and the international sports federations intended it, a laboratory for tinkering with various sports and formats -- everything from 3-on-3 basketball to the mixed team events that saw, for instance, an American and Cuban compete together in modern pentathlon.

The odds of seeing any of these experiments any time soon as part of the formal Summer Games program? Close to zero. You might, for instance, see 3-on-3 at the London 2012 or Rio 2016 Games but not as a medal event -- as halftime entertainment in the basketball tournament itself.

The IOC didn't keep a medals count in Singapore but everyone else assuredly did. Of course they did; the Olympic franchise means flags, anthems and medals, though some had suggested the Youth Games could do without. No way.

Fifty nations won at least one gold medal, among them Eritrea and Vietnam. Some treated YOG as a sort-of junior Games (China, with 51 medals overall). Some treated it as a developmental event, sending athletes who might or very well might not ever make it to the Summer Games  (the United States, which typically tops the Summer Olympic overall medals count but finished here with 25.)

Nauru, the world's smallest island nation, all of eight square miles out in the vast Pacific Ocean, won a medal here -- a silver in boxing.

A Saudi girl, Dalma Rushdi H Malhas, the first Saudi female to compete at an Olympic event, won bronze in equestrian.

Haiti's boys soccer team took silver. "Our countries are all united by the tragedies we have suffered," a 15-year-old girls' soccer player from Chile, Romina Orellana, said of the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and her own nation.

YOG was filled with such genuine, indeed lovely, moments and sentiments.

Unclear, though, from the start -- and still so -- is how to measure the import of the formal culture and education program.

Yes, some famous Olympic stars (Frankie Fredericks, Yelena Isinbayeva) came here for chats. And -- so?

Yes, a bunch of booths were set up in the athletes' village that depicted life in the various nations of the world -- Malaysia next to Lebanon next to Laos, for instance, each booth staffed by Singaporeans wearing costumes from whichever country it was. The booths seemed like something you might see at an American high school's version of International Day. It's entirely uncertain whether the booths were totally cheesy or because the target audience was, in fact, high-schoolers, pitch-perfect.

Many of the IOC members toured the booths, and the village. Within the IOC itself, YOG was a huge event -- 108 of the members, nearly all of them, made an appearance here.

Within Singapore, YOG was big news. It occupied several pages a day within the main local paper, the Straits Times.

Elsewhere, though, YOG proved a blip. If that.

Going forward, one of the key challenges YOG faces -- if not the main one -- is how to make this two-week event relevant to the young audience the IOC is seeking to reach.

Because it's in essence a high-school track meet (swim meet, gymnastics meet and so on), there's little to no interest from major broadcasters in televising significant chunks of it. Odane Skeen of Jamaica, who won the boys' 100-meter dash, was timed in 10.42 seconds. Usain Bolt's world record is 9.58. If it's at all possible for eight-tenths of a second to explain why broadcasters are highly unlikely to ever invest significantly in YOG, that's it in a nutshell.

The IOC is absolutely right, as it did aggressively here, to explore the potential of new media. Again, YOG is a laboratory for experimentation. As the IOC pointed out in a news release issued Thursday, videos on the Youth Olympic Games Channel have been viewed over five million times, and at one point it was the third most-watched YouTube channel worldwide.

The challenge is that as impressive as that sounds, it's really not -- at least not yet, in terms of global reach. That's because huge numbers of people in the world have access to a TV but not to a computer. How long will it be until that changes? A generation? Longer?

"You will be a Young Olympian for the rest of your life," IOC president Jacques Rogge said Wednesday when asked if the competitors could consider themselves "Olympic athletes." He said further, "You won't be young forever but being a young Olympian is something they can never take away from you."

Right. But what, exactly, does that mean?