Ng's moment: symbolism, vision

In a moment rich with symbolism, Singapore's Ser Miang Ng announced Thursday he is a candidate to become the next president of the International Olympic Committee. Ng, 64, made the announcement in Paris, at the Sorbonne, the university where in 1894 Pierre de Coubertin and his invitees met in the Salle Octave Gréard to revive the Olympic Games. There began the audacious idea of making this modern Olympic committee something that might someday be truly, indeed profoundly, international.

Now the movement includes more national Olympic committees, 204, than the United Nations has member states, 193.

The "values of sport," Ng said Thursday, "are tomorrow's living Olympic legacies." At the same time, he said, "The world is changing -- and the movement must evolve with it."

Ng's candidacy makes two now in the presidential race. He joins Germany's Thomas Bach, who jumped in last Thursday.

Others expected to make announcements in the coming days include Ukraine's Sergei Bubka, Puerto Rico's Richard Carrión and C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei.

The deadline for declaring is June 10. The vote is due to be held Sept. 10 at the IOC's all-members assembly in Buenos Aires. The new president will replace Jacques Rogge, who has led the IOC since 2001; Rogge replaced Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain, who served for the 21 years before that.

With one exception, American Avery Brundage, who served from 1952 to 1972, all the IOC presidents have been European.

Even now, the IOC remains traditionally Eurocentric -- 43 of the current 101 members are European -- and Bach is widely presumed to be the front-runner in the campaign.

That said, Ng has for months been traveling the world, quietly sounding out the membership.

Ng's resume, briefly: Successful businessman and diplomat. Former vice president of the international sailing federation. Chair of the organizing committee of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games, in Singapore in 2010. Member of the London 2012 and Beijing 2008 coordination commissions. IOC member since 1998 and its current first vice president.

Ng set the stage for Thursday's announcement by meeting Monday with Rogge at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. To then seize the moment by invoking de Coubertin and what Ng called this "historic, sacred place where I am inspired by our past and encouraged for our future" -- it ought to be plain that Ng is savvy, indeed, and can be expected to be a formidable candidate.

Ng said in an interview, "The IOC is strong and on sound footing thanks to the leadership of President Rogge. But definitely we live in fast-changing times, with economic challenges around the world. A lot more can be done; there is a lot more we can do. It will take discussions with members to reach a shared vision; we can go from there. Definitely we are on a shared foundation, a shared footing."

The vision thing is one of three notes that came through loud and clear from the Sorbonne:

One, Ng's emphasis on Olympic values. Young people need to be "at the center of the movement," he said, and the IOC members themselves, "blessed with a wealth of experience and knowledge," must be empowered to work with other stakeholders to "share our strengths."

He talked, too, about "silent heroes" such as Games volunteers and organizing committee staff -- with "inspiring Olympic stories to share," and said the IOC should "help them do so."

Two, while some press accounts will inevitably try to portray him as an "Asian candidate," as if that was some sort of one-dimensional thing,  he said, "I am proud to be Asian but I am also a global citizen."

Ng is Singapore's ambassador to Norway, its former ambassador to Hungary and chaired IOC commissions that chose African and South American cities to host IOC assemblies.

He added, "I understand that the strength of the movement lies within its diverse interests and perspectives -- all of which are valuable -- now more than ever."

Three, Ng for sure can rattle off details of what he would want to do, and in the "manifesto" -- Olympic jargon for to-do plan -- he is already sending to the members there absolutely are details. Some would seem obvious, and he talked about them Thursday: review the size and cost of the Games as well as the sports on the Olympic program.

That Ng's manifesto is already in the mail stands as an immediate, and intriguing, point of campaign contrast with Bach. Bach said he plans to wait until next month to make his platform available to the members.

At the same time, Ng played Thursday to the big picture -- to "goals not yet realized ... summits not yet reached ... and vistas not yet seen."

He said, "The Olympic movement faces an increasingly interconnected world.

"This will require a leader with an inclusive leadership style and worldview based on collective input and decision-making.

"And, this will require a leader who can empower the Olympic movement behind a unifying vision."

In an interview, he elaborated: "I believe this competition is not about me. It's about vision and style of leadership. I believe we need inclusion and a universal leader who is able to take into account all the different views and to empower members to be involved. The movement is bigger than one. The movement is bigger than one's self."

Back to his remarks at the Sorbonne. He closed by saying: "At every Olympic Games, the world comes together in a celebration of what it means to be human, what it means to strive and what it means to share in each other's dreams.

"…The future of the Olympic movement is written in the dreams of young people around the world. It is my most sincere desire to help all young people, everywhere, make those dreams come true. Thank you. Merci beaucoup."

USOC's snapshot of stability

Financial documents, it is often said, are boring. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

They provide a wealth of clues about the performance and direction of whatever entity is at issue.

What the U.S. Olympic Committee's annual tax filing, its Form 990, made public Wednesday, underscores -- yet again -- is that, under the direction of board chairman Larry Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun, it has reversed years of chaos and infighting and traded that for security, stability, growth and zero turmoil.

In combination with the medals tallies from the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Games -- the U.S. teams won the overall counts at both Olympics, with 37 in 2010 and 104 in 2012 -- these are, in many ways, glory years for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Almost totally.

Now comes the next step: the USOC is quietly moving to forge partnerships within the international Olympic movement. Probst is thought to be a candidate for IOC membership, perhaps as soon as this year; meanwhile, he and Blackmun have, since 2010, assiduously been at work at relationship-building, and the USOC is eyeing a bid for the Summer 2024 or Winter 2026 cycle, probably 2024.

All this is rooted in the comfort of the documents that underpin the USOC"s standing.

On the very first page: total revenues of $338.3 million, up from $140.7 million in 2011.  This wide discrepancy is normal, due to the receipt of broadcast revenues in a Games year.

Similarly, expenses were up from $185 million in 2011 to $247 million in 2012 (also, page 1).

Revenues thus exceeded expenses by $91 million.

The timing of the lump-sum broadcast pay-out for the Summer Games forces the the USOC to shelter cash reserves so that it can have sufficient operating cash for the remainder of the four-year Olympic cycle.

The apples-to-apples comparison for 2012 is 2008, the final year of the previous four-year cycle, which in Olympic terms is called a "quadrennium." USOC revenue in 2008: $280.6 million. At $338.3 million, 2012 revenue marked a 20.5 percent jump.

As a continued sign of the stability the USOC has shown since Probst took over as chairman of the board and Blackmun came on as chief executive, the report lists no severance payments -- that is, no former employees were "highly compensated."

Compare that to the 2010 Form 990, which featured three chief executives on the USOC payroll  -- Blackmun, who had been hired that year, along with former executives Jim Scherr and Stephanie Streeter.

Alan Ashley, the USOC"s chief of sport performance, got about a 10 percent raise over 2011 (page 8). Based on the 2012 team's performance in London -- who wants to question that?

Blackmun's compensation (page 7), breaks down this way: $461,923 salary (page 64), $231,750 bonus (page 64) and $35,664 retirement income (page 64). Then there's another column of deferred compensation -- a long-term performance bonus plus non-taxable retirement and health insurance benefits.

For those tempted to look only at the first column (page 7) next to Blackmun's name and see the number itself, which says, $729,337, there's this:

He made less in 2012 -- a Summer Olympic year -- than he did in 2011. His 2011 total: $742,367. He got paid a bigger bonus in 2011 is mostly why.

Then there's this for context and comparison:

According to a database published last month by USA Today, here is what various athletic directors around the United States make: Shawn Eichorst, Nebraska: $1.123 million. Barry Alvarez, Wisconsin, $1.143 million. Tom Jurich, Louisville, $1.401 million.

David Williams at Vanderbilt: $3.239 million.

By any measure in the real world, Blackmun is a bargain.

Meanwhile, USA Ski & Snowboard got $4.3 million in grants from the USOC; it earned 21 of the 37 Vancouver medals. At the 2013 alpine world championships, Ted Ligety won three gold medals; Mikaela Shiffrin won the world slalom title; Kikkan Randall is a cross-country medals threat; and more.

USA Swimming got $4.16 million; it won 31 medals in London.

USA Track & FIeld got $4.692 million. It won 29 medals in London.

This is the USOC strategy: to invest in sports likely to bring back results. Given the U.S. team's world-leading performance in London -- all those who want to argue that the swim and track teams did not measure up, line up on the left.

UCI's belated preemptive strike

Cycling's international governing body, which goes by the acronym UCI, "did not protect" Lance Armstrong as he cheated his way to the seven Tour de France titles that have since been stripped from him, a new file prepared by the federation asserts. "Every decision by the UCI concerning Armstrong -- and indeed every other rider -- was taken in compliance with the known facts and with the science available at the time," says the file, sent out Monday to national cycling federation presidents, describing the UCI as a "pioneer" in the anti-doping campaign and "at the forefront" of "many new technical advances."

In an accompanying letter, UCI president Pat McQuaid declares, "For the past 20 years, the UCI has done everything possible in tackling the scourge of doping in sport."

The exuberance of these declarations, and the timing of the file, must be understood in context. McQuaid is in a reelection campaign, and most of the Olympic world, including the International Olympic Committee executive board, will be gathering in two weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia, for what's called the SportAccord convention.

Pardon the oxymoron but this is, in essence, a belated preemptive strike.

Belated, of course, because the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's so-called "Reasoned Decision," which lays out the case against Armstrong in breathtaking fashion, came out last October.

Then, in January, came Armstrong's televised confession with Oprah Winfrey.

Now, for a variety of reasons, it's in McQuaid's interest in particular for UCI to appear transparent.

He says in the cover letter that UCI "remains committed" to an "independent audit' of UCI's "behavior and practices" during "the Armstrong years.  Armstrong won seven straight Tours de France, 1999-2005, retired, then raced again in the Tour in 2009 and 2010.

Further, McQuad says in the letter, "I can also confirm that the UCI has agreed to release all test data in our possession concerning Armstrong to both WADA," the World Anti-Doping Agency, "and USADA."

And, he says, UCI is discussing with WADA "a process that will allow a full examination of doping in the peloton in the past so that we can learn all the lessons that need to be [learned.]"

The 14-page file itself covers a range of topics that by now are familiar elements of the Armstrong tale, traversing the 1999 test for corticosteroids at the Tour de France to and through Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis and Armstrong's two donations to UCI.

"Many of the allegations leveled at the UCI have been comprehensively answered and debunked," the file says on page one.

The issue, of course, is whether this file -- in its bid to relay the truth -- tells the whole story. As the file circulated Monday around the world, there were those who found plenty to question.

Travis Tygart, the chief executive officer of USADA, called it "simply another political move full of self-serving excuses and rationalizations and not the decisive action UCI promised the world over seven months ago now."

Tygart called the file "a 14-page letter with no evidence," issued "in response to more than a decade of a corrupt culture of drug use," and  labeled it " nothing short of shameful."

As an example of whether the file merely relays events but also fixes them in the big picture, consider the matter of Armstrong's 2001 Tour of Switzerland tests.

Armstrong was tested five times in that race. Three of those five samples were tested for EPO, the blood-booster erythropoietin. All were negative. Two, though, came back with notes from the lab as "strong suspicion" for EPO with numerical readings of 75.1 and 70.0; a positive reading was 80.0.

It is therefore "clear and irrefutable," the file says, that the UCI did not conceal anything.

True.

At the same time, as other UCI documents have also made clear, Dr. Leon Schattenberg, a member of the UCI anti-doping commission, told Armstrong and then-U.S. Postal Service team leader Johan Bruyneel of the suspicious test results a few days later, at the 2001 Tour de France.

This was a "normal" UCI policy at the time, "done so that the rider, if he was indeed doping, would stop doing so and the other competitors would be protected," according to UCI documents.

Armstrong "asserted strongly" that it was "completely impossible" for him to have produced a suspicious test as he "categorically denied doping," and went on to question the EPO test itself, as those documents relate.

The entire 2001 Swiss affair galls UCI critics.

They ask: if you were serious about doping, if you were genuinely a "pioneer," what would you do about a competitor -- indeed, the sport's star rider -- who was "strongly suspicious"? Would you essentially give him a field course about how the latest new test works and how close he was to flunking it -- and thus about how, if he were smart, he had better get back in line?

Or would you, knowing he was "suspicious," wait to actually catch him?

Moreover, wouldn't you want to submit the other two tests at the time for EPO? Or test them later -- as was allowed under the rules -- for EPO? And then, later, when you had reason to know, or at least to believe, that numerous witnesses were testifying to Armstrong's use of EPO, wouldn't you provide that evidence to USADA during its investigation, particularly after repeated requests?

Then there is the matter of Hamilton.

On page 11 of Monday's file, it notes that in 2004 Hamilton was caught blood doping and "concocted a story about a vanishing twin brother," adding, "Had Hamilton not been caught by the UCI, he would never have eventually confessed and then testified against Armstrong."

OK -- except that Hamilton fought the matter for years. A confession was a long time in the making. So was testimony against Armstrong. And then, as the USADA "Reasoned Decision" makes plain, when Hamilton had offered his cooperation to U.S. law enforcement officials, Armstrong told him, "I'm going to make your life a living … f-ing … hell."

The file sent out Monday says it was UCI that in 2006 found out that Landis had tested positive for banned testosterone. "If that had not happened," the file says, "Landis would never have eventually testified against Armstrong."

Except, again, that ignores the ferocity with which Landis fought the charges, indeed the book he wrote denying culpability, the hundreds of thousands of dollars that USADA -- not UCI -- spent prosecuting the case and more. UCI would not even give USADA Landis' test data, which assuredly would have been helpful in the prosecution of the case.

It is perhaps worth recalling that in October, 2012, within a couple weeks after the Reason Decision was issued, McQuaid seemed full of scorn for Landis and Hamilton for providing evidence to USADA about the doping system in place at the U.S. Postal team:

"Landis started it. He was in a bottomless hole and he said the only way out of it was to bring the sport down. That's what he intended doing and what he intends doing but he won't achieve it.

"Another thing that annoys me is that Landis and Hamilton are being made out to be heroes. They are as far from heroes as night and day. They are not heroes, they are scumbags. All they have done is damage the sport."

As for the two donations Armstrong made to the UCI -- the file asserts there is "no relationship" between testing and the money. From the UCI's perspective: Armstrong never tested positive; there was no test to conceal; therefore, how could there be any incentive to conceal any test?

The file adds detail to the donations.

It has long been known that there were two donations, one of $25,000, the other of $100,000.

The $25,000 came in May, 2002. It was used to finance testing in the junior (17-18 year-old) and under-23 (19-22 year-old) ranks, the file says.

Armstrong offered the $100,000 in the first half of 2005, to be used to buy a new Sysmex blood analyzer, which counts reticulocytes, or new blood cells. Such cells can serve as markers for blood doping; an athlete who is using EPO or who is blood transfusing typically would not be producing new blood cells in the normal way.

The UCI bought the machine in July, 2005, paying for it with its own money. That's because, the file says, Armstrong hadn't yet made good on his offer and the machine was "urgently needed for the fight against doping." Armstrong was "reminded of his promise later in 2005 and again in 2006," eventually sending the money in January 2007, a year and a half after he had retired, the file notes.

"With the benefit of hindsight, in particular given his subsequent confessions, it is clear that Armstrong deceived his sport, as well as the UCI, and that it would have been wiser not to have accepted these donations from him."

Which is the issue critics have in the first instance with the donations themselves, right?

"Nevertheless," the file goes on to assert," the donations had no influence on the UCI's testing of Armstrong," nor on any anti-doping entity.

Straight talk about Qatar

They held a track meet Friday on a typically warm and balmy evening in Doha, the opening Diamond League event of the 2013 season. It was sensational. American long jumper Brittney Reese, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist, sailed out to a personal best, 7.25 meters, or 23 feet, 9 1/2 inches. It was the best jump by an American in 15 years.

Another London gold medalist, David Rudisha of Kenya, won again, in 1:43.87, considerably slower than his world-record 1:40.91 at the Games. That was to be expected for an early-season outing. Even so, he beat Mohammed Aman of Ethiopa -- who had beaten him last year in Zurich -- by more than half a second.

In the women's 400, Amantle Montsho of Botswana defeated Allyson Felix in a rematch of their thrilling encounter at the 2011 world championships in Daegu, South Korea; Felix hadn't lost in Doha in 10 races but, then again, hadn't run the 400 in a meet since Daegu. Montsho crossed Friday night in 49.88, Felix in 50.19. Britain's Christine Ohuruogu, the London silver medalist, took third, in 50.53.

In all, there were 11 world-leading performances. More than two dozen Olympians made the meet.

The focus Friday in Doha was on track and field. Nothing else. It just goes to show -- again -- that when given a chance, the Qataris know how to put on a big-time sports event where the athletes are front and center.

It's a mystery why so much of the world -- still -- views what is going on in Doha with such suspicion.

It's as if having money is a bad thing.

Like, why?

That is stupid thinking and ought to stop.

This is not naiveté.

If there is evidence of misconduct or wrongdoing, then it should be produced, and examined for everyone to see.

If there is not, then what is at issue is stereotyping, or worse -- and that really needs to stop. Because, as Fahad Ebrahim Juma, the director of planning and development for the Qatar Olympic Committee said in a recent interview in Doha, "Believe it or not, the Middle East is part of this earth."

One day, there are going to be Olympic Games in the Middle East.

Maybe they will be in Istanbul in 2020. The International Olympic Committee is going to vote this September on the 2020 site; Istanbul is in the mix, along with Tokyo and Madrid.

If Istanbul doesn't make it, Doha -- which bid for 2016 and 2020 but was cut -- will surely bid for 2024. Maybe even if Istanbul does make it. Who knows?

Of course, Qatar will stage soccer's World Cup in 2022.

Again, if there is documentable evidence of misconduct or wrongdoing in the Qatari World Cup bid, bring it on.

Until then, here is some of the evidence of what is actually going on in Qatar:

The country is being developed, and rapidly, according to a "National Vision 2030" plan that includes sport as one of its key pillars.

Part of the strategy involves international outreach. In 1993, Qatar staged two international sports events. In 2002, 10. This year, 40. The 2020 objective, 50.

Next year, it will stage the world swimming short-course championships; in 2015, the world handball championships; in 2016, the road cycling championships.

The Qataris announced Friday they intend to bid for the 2019 world track and field championships; they tried for 2017 but lost to London.

Another element of the 2030 plan is an internal focus. An Olympic program in the country's schools drew 5,000 students in 2008 -- 1,500 girls and 3,500 boys. This year, roughly 21,900 students -- 7,555 girls, 14,345 boys.

At the London Games, Qatar sent women to the Games for the first time -- four. But it's not as if there aren't Qatari female athletes. More than 200 Qatari women competed at the 2006 Asian Games. The Qataris are, for the most part, trying to get their female athletes to the Games by qualifying them the way every other nation does, not just by accepting wild-card invitations in swimming and track.

The nation's flag-bearer at the opening ceremony in London: female shooter Bahiya al-Hamad.

Yes, you can see women in veils in Doha. But, this spring at the QMA Gallery at Katara, near the upscale West Bay development, you could also have taken in the "Hey Ya!" photo and video exhibit -- shots of Arabic women in swimsuits; gymnastics leotards; sports bras, shorts and track spikes; whatever.

You could also have taken in a production across town of the Greek tragedy, "Medea," put on by Northwestern University in Qatar. Northwestern is one of several leading institutions with branch campuses in Qatar -- others include Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Commonwealth, Georgetown's foreign service school and Cornell's medical school.

You could have gone shopping at the Villagio mall. It has an ice rink in it. And a food court. And every shop-'til-you-drop outlet you can imagine. It's right next to the Aspire complex, with a 50,000-seat stadium and a sports-specific hospital. They put on the 2010 world indoor track and field championships at Aspire.

Or -- and this is where the Qataris got their latest round of bad press -- you could have taken in the "Olympics: Past and Present" Exhibit in a temporary hall close to the Museum of Islamic Art. The show will run there until June 30; it's due eventually to be housed in a Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum.

The exhibit, which opened in March, is split into two parts, one highlighting ancient Olympia, the other the modern Games. On display are some 1,200 items, including over 600 from Greece and international museums.

There's a mini-Olympic stadium. There are Olympic posters and mascots. There is every Olympic torch -- including the super hard-to-find Helsinki 1952 torch.

The display, put together by Dr. Christian Wacker, a German historian, is genuine. It is engaging. Most important, it doesn't skirt the truth -- it confronts the honest realities that, for instance, the Games have had boycotts and been shadowed by doping problems.

All that, and the one thing that the European press bothered to write about -- which then made the English-language wire services -- is some nude statues?

A compromise -- a fabric six feet in front of the statues -- didn't suit the Greek Culture Ministry. So the antiquities were a no-go, and reportedly shipped back to Athens, where it somehow became a story.

Why? Because cultural sensitivities in Doha are, on some level, different than in Athens? Who got together and decided that cultural standards in Athens make the world go around?

The controversy is all the more incredible given that this exhibit is -- again -- literally in the shadow of one of the world's finest exhibits of Islamic art.

Beyond which -- there is nudity in the exhibit, including a lovely small bronze.

Four Olympic champions, meanwhile, were among those touring the show on Wednesday: Felix, Reese, American triple-jumper Christian Taylor and Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

It was normal.

Then they, and a bunch of other top athletes, went out Friday night and ran. Normal.

"I love racing in Doha," said Kellie Wells, the London bronze medalist in the women's 100 hurdles, who finished second Friday, behind London silver medalist Dawn Harper-Nelson.

Harper-Nelson ran a world-leading 12.6; Wells ran a season-best 12.73. "It's always great to run here," Wells said. "Every single time."

Bach into the race first

Thomas Bach announced his candidacy Thursday for the International Olympic Committee presidency. It's not news, really, that he's running. The only issue was the timing.

Everyone in Olympic circles has been mindful for years that Bach has been interested in the top job. Indeed, he is, by most accounts, considered the front-runner for the presidency. Now comes the time to find out, with the election Sept. 10 in Buenos Aires, if being the front-runner, indeed announcing first, proves smart campaign strategy.

"I didn't want to keep other members in the dark any longer," Bach said at a news conference in Frankfurt, according to wire service reports. "I think it is the right time."

Bach would seem to meet most every qualification you could think of for the job. He is an Olympic gold medalist, in 1976 in fencing. He has been an IOC member since 1991. Without interruption, he has been a member of the policy-making executive board since 1996.

As chairman of the IOC juridicial commission, Bach -- a lawyer -- heads inquiries into most doping cases. He has chaired evaluations for cities bidding for Summer and Winter Games. He leads European television rights negotiations for the IOC. He is the head of the German national Olympic confederation, which goes by the acronym DOSB.

"With my management and leadership experience on the national and international level of sport, but also in business and politics and society, I am well trained for this great task," he said in a telephone  call with reporters after the news conference.

Other probable candidates include Sergei Bubka of Ukraine, Richard Carrión of Puerto Rico, Ser Miang Ng of Singapore and C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei. The deadline for declaring is June 10, three months ahead of the vote.

The winner will succeed Jacques Rogge of Belgium, who will have served 12 years. Rogge took over from Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain.

The timing of Bach's announcement is most intriguing. Rumors had been circulating about who was going to get out there first -- and it was not Bach.

But then, suddenly, it was Bach, and it was him saying on the conference call, "This campaign for IOC president is not like a political campaign because the IOC members, they know all the candidates very well. They know what they are standing for, they know what they have contributed in the past to the Olympic movement and they know what they think."

He added, for emphasis, that it was "very much about convincing the members rather than about the public at large."

Step one, apparently, was what Bach did Wednesday in advance of Thursday's announcement.

Again, the timing -- most interesting.

He sent the members a letter -- he talked about it in Thursday's conference call -- that included a copy of the 10-page speech he presented in October, 2009, in Copenhagen at the Olympic Congress on the structure of the movement. That speech focuses on the notion of how sport must maintain autonomy in a complex 21st-century world. It refers to sources such as the philosopher Immanuel Kant. It prizes "respect, responsibility, reliability."

The headline on the speech: "Unity in diversity." That, Bach said Thursday, is the working mantra for his campaign as he "listen[s] even more carefully to the members" over the next several weeks before presenting a real-world plan for what he would do as president.

This microcosm highlights Bach in action. It also presents some of the challenges to his campaign.

Kant? Ten pages? Structure?

After years of anticipation -- that's the opening play?

There is an enormously delicate balance to be struck in this sort of campaign. The IOC presidency is a serious job, and the members have to know you are legitimate. At the same time, as Bach articulated in that conference call, this is a race that is something more like running for high-school class president than prime minister.

Once more, then, about the timing of all this -- so, so interesting. Was Bach being pro-active or hurriedly reactive in the belief that someone else might be setting the presidential agenda by being out first? Why else send out the preemptive strike of a (more than) three-year-old 10-page tome on the structure of the movement?

The skeptic would say that would simply buy time to put together his real manifesto.

In the meantime, what tone does this launch set for his campaign?

Whatever the motivation, always understand this: Bach is smart, capable, resourceful and formidable. His allies are all those things, as well.

An intriguing back story to Bach's campaign is that, for the moment, he would appear to be not only the single major western European candidate but, obviously, German.

The DOSB on Thursday issued a statement of support for him. From Berlin, Associated Press reported, German chancellor Angela Merkel "wishes him success."

Ordinarily, being European in the Eurocentric IOC might seem a huge advantage.

Then again, when one looks around at major international organizations, one is hard-pressed to find many Germans in charge. Until just a few weeks ago, the pope was German -- but now there is a new pope, and he is South American.

There are 35 Olympic sports. Only two have German presidents, modern pentathlon and luge. Neither is considered particularly influential.

Will Bach's German-ness prove an advantage, or not? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, Bach said Thursday he intends to run a clean campaign: "The campaign I am running is in favor of me. I am not running against anybody else. This is my leading consideration in what I will do these next four months."

The IOC presidency Top-10 list

The next president of the International Olympic Committee, whoever it will be, takes over an organization that is, in these early years of the 21st century, at a crossroads. By many indicators, one would look at the Olympic movement and see positive trend lines. The Games in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012 were memorable, indeed. The five rings are, without question, one of the world's top brands. The IOC itself seems to have weathered the global economic downturn.

At the same time, the pace of change in today's world is ever-increasing and the paramount challenge facing the movement is not merely to remain a source of connection and inspiration. Bluntly, and above all else, it's to remain relevant.

The new president will be elected in September at an all-members IOC assembly in Buenos Aires. He -- the presumed candidates are, at this moment, all men -- will replace Jacques Rogge of Belgium, who has served as president since 2001.

The potential candidates are believed to include, in alphabetical order, Thomas Bach of Germany, Sergei Bubka of Ukraine, Richard Carrión of Puerto Rico, Ser Miang Ng of Singapore and C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei.

Mr. President-to-be, you did not ask for a Top-10 list of what you need to do when you set up shop on Day One at the Chateau de Vidy, the IOC headquarters by Lake Geneva in Lausanne, Switzerland. Please consider this merely an early expression of goodwill in the form of constructive suggestion, along with a healthy measure of good luck -- because, sir, you're going to need that, too.

1. Be a thought leader

There is a lot to be said for making money. Every other sporting concern -- the soccer leagues, American football, the NBA, the NHL -- is there to make money. But that's not what the Olympic movement, and by extension the IOC, are about. The movement stands for a set of ideals, and for values such as excellence, friendship and respect. The Games are the expression of those ideals and values, and at their best they produce moments that remind us of the best in each of us. As IOC boss, given that you get to meet with presidents, prime ministers and with school kids, too, your job is to promote those values. Relentlessly. Creatively. The mission is not to organize good Games. That's too narrow. Instead, it is to make the ideals and values shine so brightly that they draw in young people and communities. The money will follow.

2. Fix the Summer Games program

In Vancouver in 2010, there were 24 medal opportunities in freeskiing and snowboarding. In Sochi next winter: 48. That speaks to the IOC's understanding of how to keep the Winter Games program fresh and current. As for the Summer Games program? Not so much. The IOC has added rugby and golf for 2016 and 2020. Under Rogge, it has dropped baseball and softball. It now threatens to drop wrestling. The controversy over the policy-making executive board's move in February to drop wrestling from the 25-sport "core," and the uncertainty over the process by which sports might be added to the program underscores the wider bewilderment. Beyond process, there is also substance. It says everything you need to know that skateboarding is not even on the shortlist for inclusion. Or that dual trampoline and synchronized diving are in but wrestling is fighting for its Olympic life. This might make sense to IOC insiders -- who understand the distinction in Olympic jargon between "disciplines," "events" and "sports" -- but to much of the outside world looking in, it can be all too difficult to fathom. Is that a good thing?

3. Make wholesale changes to the bid city process

Every two years, the roughly 100 IOC members award the next edition of the Games -- whether  Winter or Summer, each is a multibillion-dollar proposition -- to a city and country that has spent millions chasing the prize. The members, because of rules imposed after the late 1990s Salt Lake City corruption scandal, are not allowed to visit the bid cities. Instead, an IOC evaluation commission tours the cities and issues a report. Problematically, many members acknowledge not reading that report. Is this best practices? Short answer: no. The time has come to thoroughly re-visit the bid city rules. The bids cost too much. For that matter, the members should be permitted once again to visit the cities. Some things really do have to be seen to be -- well, if not believed then at least perceived. The problem is not trusting the members -- it is, as it always has been, about trusting the cities. Here are some further assumptions for a thorough review of the bid process: since the Games are supposed to be about sport, not nation-building, perhaps future bids should meet some metric of preparation. Examples for consideration: Should x percent of venues already be completed? Should non-organizing committee budgets not be over $x billion? Should total budgets not exceed $x billion? In 2003, the IOC adopted a report calling for prudence, indeed modesty, in Games build-out and venue construction; the 2014 Sochi price tag is now known to be at least $51 billion. That sort of disconnect merits some hard reflection.

4. Fix the Youth Games, or get rid of this experiment

Why are the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China? Originally, the notion was that YOG was a vehicle for cities and nations that couldn't possibly stage the "regular" Games. Example: the inaugural version, in Singapore in 2010. Already, though, the second Summer YOG will be in China, where the Summer Games themselves were staged in 2008? With, it must be said, a budget of more than $300 million? Why? Is that only to keep this initiative alive? Big picture -- what, exactly, is YOG doing? Originally, again, the idea was to connect teenagers more actively with the Olympic movement. Where is the real evidence YOG is achieving that goal? The Young Reporters project run as part of YOG has proven an unqualified success. But what metric shows YOG itself gets the Olympic spirit moving in teens? It is true, for instance, that South Africa's Chad le Clos won five medals in swimming in Singapore and then won on to defeat Michael Phelps in the 200-meter butterfly in London. But le Clos wasn't inspired to swim with Phelps because of what happened in Singapore. It had been his dream to race against Phelps ever since he saw Phelps compete in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

5. Decide: who, really, are the IOC members, and what are they doing?

The Rogge years have seen a concentration of power in the executive board and in the growing numbers of staff at Vidy. This has left many members wondering what, exactly, they're there to do. They vote for the bid cities -- but don't get to see them. They vote on the sports -- but not for sports that many would like to see on the ballot. The IOC's sessions, as the annual assemblies are called, are not -- repeat, not -- exercises in robust floor debate but, rather, a succession of reports read out, often numbingly, to the members. To quote Peggy Lee: is that all there is? For all that, the line to get in as an IOC member remains long, and that needs to be addressed, too, because the current rules -- again, adopted in the wake of the Salt Lake affair -- make it difficult to recruit someone not affiliated with an international federation or particular national Olympic committee. Has that proven a sound notion or too limiting? As for the athlete members -- in theory, that is a good idea but in practice they can be treated as second-class citizens because everyone knows they're done after eight years. One essential -- the mandatory retirement limit, again a function of the Salt Lake reforms, is now 70. It should be raised to 75.

6. Re-balance the "pillars"

Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC president for 21 years before Rogge, used to talk about how the Olympic movement depended on the unity of certain "pillars," likening the entire thing to a table stool and insisting all the legs needing to be equal. There are the national Olympic committees, he would say. The international federations. The IOC. The IFs? How many of them right now could stand to be more accountable in terms of governance, use of IOC funds and anti-doping efforts? The more than 200 NOCs? How many of them could stand to have their governance brought into line with 21st century IOC practices? The Samaranch era, of course, has given way to a far more complex time in which there are other "pillars" that must be included in the calculus. While the IOC has always moved with governments around the world, the pressures on state-funded sport -- which but for the United States means virtually everywhere -- are now especially pronounced. And yet at the Games, if the IOC were called to produce records, how would it say it treated sports ministers, particularly from developing nations? Life, as Samaranch always taught, is a relationship business.

7. Re-think the broadcast strategy

This is the elephant in the room: NBC is the cash cow (apologies for mixing cows and elephants) that keeps the Olympic movement funded as we know it now. Its most recent deal is for broadcast rights to the Games in the United States from 2014 through 2020, and is worth $4.38 billion. NBC is paying $775 million for the 2014 Winter Games, $1.226 billion for the 2016 Summer Games, $963 million for the 2018 Winter Games and $1.418 billion for 2020. Three obvious questions: 1. How long can the IOC expect an American television network to keep carrying the financial load, as NBC has done for a generation? 2. How long is it reasonable to expect the U.S. Olympic Committee to remain politically sidelined -- as it has been, partly because of its own internal issues, for most of the Rogge years -- while an American network is so economically potent? 3. Compare: Brazilian TV rights for 2014-16, $210 million (after a 2012 Games that saw disappointing ratings there). China, 2014-16: $160 million. France, 2014-16: $120 million. Now, please, refer once more to the NBC sum and then to obvious questions 1 and 2 in this section, and ask, what is wrong with this picture?

8. Make the anti-doping campaign a priority, and betting, too

Rogge, a doctor, has talked a good game about trying to stamp our performance-enhancing drugs. He genuinely means it. A fair reading of the record during his term, however, will detail the BALCO and Lance Armstrong scandals in the United States; widespread doping in Russian sport; the Operation Puerto matter in Spain; and more. To be clear, the IOC president is not -- repeat, not -- to blame for cheating in elite sport. That would be absurd. He has the authority, however, to help engineer an even more coordinated effort -- and way less infighting -- between the IOC, the IFs, governments and the World Anti-Doping Agency. Governments need to understand the plain truth, and get serious about spending real money: sports stars are role models and the entire Olympic enterprise depends on the credibility of clean competition. For their part, the IFs need to stop fighting WADA over the truth, too -- athletes cheat because they can, and they do because performance-enhancing drugs work. To read the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's "reasoned decision" in the Armstrong case is to sit down with a legal brief that reads like a John le Carré thriller. For its part, WADA needs to figure out what to do about a system in which doping tests prove almost nothing -- Marion Jones, a serial cheater, passed 160 tests without a problem, and Armstrong got through hundreds cleanly -- and far too many cases are marijuana-related positives, which burn up time and resource, and prove -- what? Illegal betting, meanwhile, represents the next systemic threat to the Olympic movement. The IOC -- along with police and prosecutors -- must make it clear, as Rogge has done, that it will tackle match fixing aggressively.

9. Make equality count

On the field of play, especially at the Summer Games, the IOC is nearing gender equity. In London, every nation sent female athletes -- a first. Women made up 44 percent of the competitors in London; that's up from 23 percent in Los Angeles in 1984. In Sochi next February, women will, finally, take part in ski jumping -- evidence, too, of how the IOC moves, if sometimes too slowly for some, toward increasing the number of women's events on the program. The next issue: the percentage of women in executive and management positions. Simply put, it is way too low. The NOCs, IFs, national federations and others within the movement originally set a target of reserving 20 percent of all decision-making positions for women by 2005; this objective was not met. The current numbers, based on survey responses from 110 of the 205 NOCs (a 53.7 percent rate -- itself showing that not enough take the matter seriously) and from 70.4 percent of the IFs: women account for only 4 percent of NOC presidents and 3.2 percent of IF presidents; as well 17.6 percent of the seats on NOC executive boards, 18 percent on IF boards. Those numbers must -- to repeat, must -- go up. Doubters? The IOC Charter -- rule 2, paragraph 7 -- declares that one of the roles of the IOC is to "encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures, with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women."

10. Communicate, communicate, communicate

The IOC needs a 21st century media department and press officer. Two reasons: 1. External communication is far too dependent -- almost to the point of ridiculous exclusion of everyone else -- on the wire services to get its message out. But the media landscape is changing -- if not changed already. Moreover, in far too many cases, the IOC -- for whatever reason -- can seem defensive in relaying whatever the message might be. That's mysterious. The IOC so often has a great story to tell. Again, it is the only enterprise rooted in ideals and values. 2. The IOC's internal communications system is so lacking that any number of members and staff have created their own ad hoc networks to find out what's what. Fixing both elements, external and internal communications, ought to be a pressing priority.

Wrestling with it: US v. Iran

Iran is a mainstay in international wrestling. The United States has a long and proud wrestling history, too. In February, the International Olympic Committee's policy-making executive board moved to exclude wrestling from the 2020 Summer Games program. Sports officials in both countries would like to change that. Thus USA Wrestling is now promoting two meets: May 15 in New York, May 19 in Los Angeles. Both days: U.S. v. Iran. It's an example, a press release notes, of "international goodwill through wrestling," and follows an American wrestling trip in February to Teheran.

It is often said that sports and politics don't mix.

In this case, the sports is all about politics. It's sports politics. It's geopolitics. It's politics with ramifications yet uncertain.

It's "outrageous," Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said of the wrestling exhibitions, asking rhetorically, in a reference to the Berlin Games used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes, "Did we not learn anything since 1936?"

The challenge for USA Wrestling is that it has an elemental goal: get back in the 2020 Summer Games. That is its narrow focus, and that is why the Iranians have been extended an invite.

"We think this an opportunity to use sport for good and maintain our position on the Olympic program," said Rich Bender, executive director of USA Wrestling.

The bigger-picture complexity is that Iran's Olympic-sport athletes have for the last several years withdrawn, purposely lost or suddenly reported feeling ill so that they wouldn't have to compete against Israelis.

The Olympic values purport to exemplify excellence, friendship and respect. Consider the record since 2004 in particular, and ask how USA Wrestling is -- simply by giving the Iranians this platform and the media attention that goes with it -- advancing those values.

Iran does not recognize Israel. It bans contact with the Jewish state.

New York and Los Angeles make up -- outside Israel -- the largest Jewish communities in the world.

At last summer's London Olympics, Iranian officials declared for the record that their athletes would indeed compete against Israelis.

But the only Iranian athlete who could possibly have faced an Israeli opponent -- judo champion Javad Mahjoob, competing in the 100-kilogram class -- pulled out immediately before the Games, claiming a digestive infection.

At the 2011 world swimming championships, Iran's Mohammed Alirezaei opted out of his qualifying heats in the 100-meter breaststroke. Israeli Gal Nevo was in the same race. Alirezaei told Associated Press he was "so tired and drowsy" from flying the day before the race.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Alirezaei pulled out of the 100 breaststroke, which included another Israeli, Tom Beeri. The IOC accepted the explanation that Alirezaei was ill.

That both withdrawals came against Israelis, Alirezaei said when asked about it in 2008 -- that was simply a coincidence.

At the 2004 Games in Athens, Iran's Arash Mirasmaeli showed up the morning of his match against Israeli Udi Wax. But Mirasmaeli -- an experienced two-time world champion -- inexplicably did not make weight, "disqualifying" himself.

And more:

In 2006, Iran withdrew from the World Judo Championships, to avoid a match with Israel. A year later, Iranian referee Ahmed Kaspandi declined to referee a match in which an Israeli player was participating.

At the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, Israel's Gili Haimovitz won the 48 kg/106 lbs. gold-medal match when Iran's Mohammad Soleimani defaulted; he claimed to have aggravated a leg injury.

Moreover, at the medal ceremony, Soleimani did not show up. The Israeli flag went up; the anthem was played; the silver-medalist's spot went vacant.

Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, listed in 2007 by Newsweek as one of the most influential rabbis in the United States, is a longtime sports fan. He said, "I was pretty shocked wrestling was removed because it's a dynamic sport. It brings people from around the world together. A lot of other things should have been cut first and they should restore it."

He also is a fan of the Games: "It is compelling. There are rules. There is no shtick. This is what sports are supposed to be."

In London, Iran won six wrestling medals, fully half its total of 12. Three were gold, third-best, behind only Russia and Japan. In Iran, wrestling really matters.

For comparison: the United States won four wrestling medals, two gold, out of 104 total.

Wrestling is not just about force and power. It's also about leverage. USA Wrestling had it but didn't use it, Cooper said, asserting that the federation should have have "had the guts" to invite a third party -- the Israelis.

If the conclusion had been that to invite the Israelis meant the Iranians wouldn't come -- well, Cooper said, "that rests the case."

As it happens, the May 15 event in New York, at Grand Central Terminal, is indeed a doubleheader. There's the U.S. v. Iran. And the U.S. v. Russia -- Russia is the world's leading wrestling power. Russia won 82 medals overall in London, 11 in wrestling.

The Israelis have not been invited.

The May 19 show in Los Angeles is set for the Sports Arena.

As further evidence that this tour is motivated by interests other than pure sport: international wrestling is hardly on the radar screen in LA, home of the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels, Kings, Ducks, USC and UCLA.

Indeed, while USC and UCLA now field women's varsity sand volleyball and USC even has a women's lacrosse team, there is no USC nor UCLA varsity wrestling team, men's or women's. Olympic-style wrestling is simply just not part of the Southern California culture.

What is, though, and indisputably, is the Persian influence. Estimates vary, but there is no question there are hundreds of thousands of people who can claim ties to Iran in Los Angeles and Southern California, and the phrase "Teherangeles," especially for the area immediately south of UCLA, is a well-known part of LA life.

Iranian wrestlers have not competed in the United States since 2003, when the world championships were held in New York.

The Iranians are expected to bring two-time world champion Mehdi Taghavi Kermani at 66 kg/145.5 lbs., and two 2012 bronze medalists, Ehsan Lashgari at 84 kg/185 lbs., and Komeil Ghasemi at 120 kg/264.5 lbs.

The U.S. team in LA will be led by 74 kg/163 lbs. gold medalist Jordan Burroughs and 60 kg/132 lbs. bronze medalist Coleman Scott. Two other 2012 U.S. Olympians are on the U.S. roster: Tervel Dlagnev, the 2009 world silver medalist, at 120 kg/264.5 lbs, and Sam Hazewinkel at 55 kg/121 lbs.

The U.S. v. Russia meet is due to be held under some experimental rules designed to press wrestling's case before the IOC. U.S. v. Iran will feature the current international freestyle wrestling rules.

"It's too bad the Iranian sports system corrupts and debases what sports stands for," Cooper said, adding a moment later, "I am also disappointed the U.S. State Department did not put a caveat on this: the Iranian team would be welcome to come but not by debasing what America stands for.

"At best it's a lost opportunity and at worst it's sending a wrong signal. It's sending the signal that will be received by the mullahs that was the same signal Hitler got: you can do all these terrible things, make a mockery of human rights and still get invited to the dance. That's a shonda," Yiddish for shame.

He laughed a wry laugh and said, "That's a famous wrestling term. And you can quote me on it."

SD + TJ = DOA

San Diego likes to call itself "America's Finest City." The nature of is location means it is geographically and culturally isolated from the rest of the civilized world. To the west, there's the ocean. To the east, desert. To the north, the U.S. Marine base at Camp Pendleton provides a buffer between the sprawl of Orange County and Los Angeles. To the south, there's literally a fence between San Diego and Tijuana.

The weather in San Diego is almost perfect. The thinking -- sometimes not so much.

All that isolation can lead to a bad case, in hindsight, of -- seriously?

The U.S. Olympic Committee on Tuesday finally delivered the dose of common sense to San Diego Mayor Bob Filner that some junior staffer in the mayor's office should have brought -- and maybe even did bring -- long ago.

San Diego and Tijuana can not bid as one for the 2024 Summer Games. The International Olympic Committee charter simply does not allow for two countries to jointly host Summer Games.

"There's no opportunity for them to bid together," USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said.

There never was any such opportunity. They absolutely knew this in San Diego, or should have. How? Because a few years back, the possibility of a San Diego-Tijuana 2016 bid came up, and was tossed out for the very same reason.

Look, even the most cursory Google search turns up this:

In 2011, the IOC president, Jacques Rogge, was asked about the notion of North Korea co-hosting the Winter Games with South Korea. This was when the South Korean city of Pyeongchang was in the midst of bidding for the 2018 Winter Games.

Rogge's answer:

"The IOC awards the Games to one city in one country. As far as spreading venues between the two countries, that's something we do not consider.

"We're not going to change the Olympic Charter because otherwise you complicate the organization."

Filner is reportedly "undaunted."

"The true spirit of the Olympics embodies my conviction that we should vigorously pursue the dream of having two countries host the Olympics in the greatest bi-national region of the world," Associated Press quoted the mayor as saying upon being told that a San Diego-Tijuana bid would be dead on arrival.

"Rules and bylaws can be changed."

Mr. Mayor, please. You should be daunted. In this instance, rules and bylaws are not going to be changed, and especially not for the United States of America -- not after Chicago got booted in the first round for 2016, and after an in-person appearance by President Obama, and New York in the second for 2012.

That is not the way the IOC works.

Nor is the IOC likely to look with favor on a bid from, say, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

AP quoted a Tulsa city councilwoman, Karen Gilbert, as describing the prospect of Tulsa bidding for the Games as a "good kind of crazy."

Um.

"It's going out there and saying, 'We want the big stuff," Gilbert said. "It doesn't hurt to shoot for the stars, you know?"

Absolutely not, Ms. Gilbert.

But here's the deal:

The USOC, as it has made plain from the start, is going to put forward a 2024 bid under one condition.

The USOC is in for 2024 if, and only if, it believes it can win.

To be gentle, because there's no point in knocking the star-shooting-for nice folks, Tulsa can not win. So there's no point in perpetuating what would otherwise be a charade.

The Summer Games are the IOC's primary franchise. Tulsa is Oklahoma's second-largest city. The Games are well beyond the scope of a city Tulsa's size.

It has 13,000 hotel rooms; the USOC demands more than 40,000. The city would have to finance and build a suitable stadium. And so on.

The USOC is going to take its sweet time this year going through the list of potential American candidates. Why? Because it can. There's no rush. The 2020 election -- Istanbul, Madrid, Tokyo -- isn't until September, and the variables involved in assessing 2024 may shift depending on how that 2020 race plays out.

It's likely, however, that in the end -- just as in the beginning -- there will be three likely choices: San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles. And of those three, probably only two: San Francisco and New York.

The challenge for LA, which has played host to the 1932 and 1984 Games, is obvious -- why No. 3?

Never say never for other possibilities. Philadelphia, for instance, has a track stadium. Dallas has an array of facilities and tons of money.

But, again, if the USOC gets in, it's in to win. Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco. Stanford set a new record in 2012 in college fund-raising, becoming the first school to raise more than $1 billion in one year. The IOC is forever looking to appeal to young people and Silicon Valley is the tech capital of the world. You walk down the street in Palo Alto and you literally run into billionaires.

And -- you can't run a joint San Diego-Tijuana cross-border bid.

Some things are just super-obvious.

It's 2013, not 1750 - a call for vision

Here's a revolutionary idea -- revolutionary, that is, only if this were 1750, not 2013. What about having each of the candidates for the International Olympic Committee presidency actually present his vision -- "his," because it appears the candidates are likely to be men -- before the July 3-4 extraordinary session in Lausanne, Switzerland?

As it happens, this is the subject of ferocious internal IOC debate.

It should be a no-brainer.

Of course, each of the candidates should present, and publicly, what in IOC terms is typically called a "manifesto."

The IOC has in many ways made great strides since the Salt Lake City corruption scandal shook the organization in the late 1990s.

At the same time, it suffers still from a lack of accountability and transparency and -- remarkably, given that the institution, alone among all major sports entities, is rooted in a sense of values -- a defensiveness when it comes to meeting the press and explaining, in any number of areas, its position.

Frankly, it's something of a mystery.

Jacques Rogge's 12 years as president are winding to a close. In September, at the session in Buenos Aires, the IOC will elect his successor. Even now, the presumed candidates are traveling the world, assessing their chances and, as well, their rivals.

The list of probable presidential candidates, in alphabetical order: Thomas Bach of Germany, Sergei Bubka of Ukraine, Richard Carrión of Puerto Rico, Ser Miang Ng of Singapore, C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei.

This list is not final nor official. Nothing is allowed yet to be official; formal declarations aren't even't allowed to be forthcoming for a few more weeks yet.

Even so, pretty much everyone within Olympic circles knows who's going to run; who's not; and who's on the fence.

The last contested election -- the one that saw Rogge succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch -- took place in 2001.

The tension that's at issue -- then and now -- is that the IOC is of course in some ways a very public institution, and the IOC president in every way a worldwide public figure. At the same time, the IOC itself, while obviously carrying on with the attributes of a multibillion-dollar, multinational business, is at its core an exclusive, per-invitation members-only (101 right now, thank you) club.

As a club, it writes its own rules.

It changes or modifies those rules in response to a variety of interests. For those who might believe otherwise -- the IOC is typically a hugely rational institution.

In 2001, Rogge circulated a manifesto among the members.

It suggested that "common sense should incite us to look at ways of slightly reducing the size, cost and complexity of the Games in order to make them less vulnerable to the future. This approach would enable all continents and regions to organize the Games more easily and would encourage geographical rotation."

Two years later, the IOC adopted a study that called for curbs on the costs and size of the Games. Even so, Beijing 2008, London 2012, Sochi 2014 and now Rio 2016 have all gone on to be blockbuster, bank-busting projects.

At the same time, the notion of geographical rotation has for sure been fulfilled -- in addition to those projects, the 2018 Winter Games will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

More from Rogge's 2001 manifesto:

The role of the individual IOC members, he wrote, must be "redefined" and "strengthened," each member "constantly kept informed and consulted," the sessions themselves "more interactive and [allowing] for debates on the fundamental subjects of Olympism."

One of the Salt Lake reforms is that the sessions are televised on closed-circuit TV. The Mexico City session in 2002 erupted in full-on debate on the nature of the sports on the Summer Games program. Since then, Rogge and the policy-making executive board have largely run the show and the sessions have for the most part consisted of the dry recitation of reports read to the members.

This, too, from the 2001 Rogge manifesto:

"The IOC could make better use of the high potential of its members, who are its ambassadors and who must be given material and financial backing for this task where required. The President and the members must remain volunteers."

Just a couple days ago, Rogge suggested in an interview with a German newspaper that the IOC president ought to be paid.

The point of bringing up his 2001 manifesto now is not to call out the president. People are entitled to change their minds, especially after 12 years on the job.

There are challenges galore with the notion of having a paid president -- as the U.S. Olympic Committee found out a few years ago when it made a board member, Stephanie Streeter, its paid chief executive officer. To make a long story short, it didn't work out.

The point of bringing up what the president thought about the matter in 2001, now, is this:

Rogge's 2001 manifesto was not circulated then except within the club. It is marked "confidential."

Perhaps it could be said then but it is certainly the case now -- in 2013, the business of the IOC is too important to remain a matter for just the members to debate among themselves. Yes, the IOC is a club. But it is so much more.

Moreover, there is a sense among many that the IOC is, in many ways, at a crossroads. Whoever is the next president takes over an organization with multiple challenges -- starting with Sochi and Rio, doping and betting, the make-up of the sports on the program and going from there -- and his vision ought to be out there, for everyone to know and understand.

Leadership is measured by accountability. Trust is rooted in transparency. The IOC is better when it truly pays heed to the values it purports to stand for.

That's why this should be a no-brainer.

A CNN campaign-style debate? That's probably a step too far.

But the manifestos will make for excellent reading. No one should have anything to be afraid of. Indeed, the candidates who get it, who understand where the movement is now and where it needs to go, would want their visions published. For everyone to see.

The Samaranch legacy -- still "amazing"

TIANJIN, China -- The past, present and future of the International Olympic Committee intersected here Sunday in this northern China port city of 13 million people. Exactly three years to the day after he passed away, the Juan Antonio Samaranch Memorial Museum was dedicated, its 16,578 pieces on rich display to tell the story of the former IOC president's unparalleled impact on the modern Olympic movement.

Misunderstood by so many in the American and British press but beloved by so many within the Olympic movement, and particularly in China, the ceremony attracted nearly a fourth of the current IOC membership as well as a crowd of more than 300 leading sports figures, personalities and dignitaries from all four corners of the world.

"Dear friends," the current IOC president, Jacque Rogge, said in inaugurating the museum, "we know what we all owe to Juan Antonio Samaranch.

"If our movement is today strong and united, it is thanks to his visionary qualities and extraordinary talent. His knowledge of the world of sport and his deep attachment to the Olympic values were unquestionable. Juan Antonio Samaranch left us a great legacy that we must conserve and perpetuate. This memorial is the greatest homage we can pay to him."

That, and the business at hand Saturday night in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel in Tianjin, because as Samaranch always understood, the business of the Olympic movement is relationships, and with so much at stake this historic election year, the scene in the lobby served as an intriguing prelude of what's to come.

This was, to be candid, a power get-together. Samaranch would have loved it.

At the IOC's session in Buenos Aires in September, the IOC will elect a new president; decide the 2020 Summer Games site (Madrid, Tokyo and Istanbul are in the race); and perhaps make changes to the Summer Games program (as of now, wrestling, baseball and softball and other sports are in the mix).

This museum dedication drew together a clutch of those often mentioned as potential presidential candidates -- nothing being official because nothing is allowed yet to be official, but in alphabetical order: Thomas Bach of Germany, Sergei Bubka of Ukraine, Richard Carrión of Puerto Rico, Ser Miang Ng of Singapore, C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei.

Bach and Ng are IOC vice presidents.

Bach is a gold medal-wining fencer turned lawyer who for years has been a senior IOC presence. Ng, a businessman and diplomat, oversaw the enormously successful 2010 Youth Games.

Carrión, a banker, has negotiated the IOC's most complex television deals; he had served on the IOC's policy-making executive board until just last year.

Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. of Spain, was here, naturally, along with his sister, Maria Teresa, and some of their extended family; he now sits on the IOC EB.

So does Bubka, the former pole vaulter, now a mainstay in track and field and IOC politics.

So, too, Wu, an architect who sparked the construction of the museum. An IOC member since 1988, he is now president of the international boxing federation, which goes by the acronym AIBA.

Also here: Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah of Kuwait, head of the Assn. of National Olympic Committees and the Olympic Council of Asia.

To be precise, this dedication attracted 24 IOC members (out of 101); four honorary members; and eight international federation presidents.

Those numbers are all the more remarkable because the IOC is staging a major assembly in just a couple days in Lima, Peru, the 15th "World Conference on Sport for All." It is testament to the elder Samaranch's hold on the imagination that so many opted to come here.

"His wisdom and genius inspired all those who loved the Olympics," Wu said in his speech Sunday.

Wu and Samaranch shared an interest in collecting, and before his death Samaranch donated his lifelong collection to Wu, who had become a good friend. It includes books, stamps, souvenirs, paintings, letters, photographs, personal items, manuscripts and texts on Olympic-related themes.

Samaranch went to the Chinese mainland authorities in December, 1987, to express his intention to nominate Wu for IOC membership at the session in Calgary in February, 1988. In those days, the relationship between Beijing and Taiwan was sensitive, indeed.

Wu went on to be elected without opposition at that Calgary session. He said here: "I really appreciate what he has done for me. He has changed the entirety of my life. I might still be working as an architect in my profession. After this, it totally changed my life. Now -- I want to build a museum. In Chinese, we say, when you drink water, you always think of who gave you the water. This is an important philosophy."

The project broke ground in 2011 -- 205,000 square feet, in all, amid a park 45 minutes from central Tianjin. But construction really got underway only last July, finishing for good just before Sunday's formal opening. The project, which cost $61 million, was largely financed by the Tianjin municipal government.

The project required express approval by various branches of the Chinese national government -- the first time it had granted such OK to a memorial for a foreign figure, evidence again of Samaranch's stature here.

Why Tianjin? Why, for that matter, China for such a memorial? Because Samaranch visited China many times and believed powerfully in the possibilities of the movement here. Indeed, it was at his final IOC session -- in Moscow in 2001 -- that Beijing was selected as site of the 2008 Games.

Just a few days later, Rogge was picked as Samaranch's successor. The museum shows a picture of the two men shaking hands on that day.

Time keeps turning. Buenos Aires nears. It is three years already, and yet Samaranch's influence on the movement is still considerable.

"He was a real human being, with big passion, who loved sport," Bubka said Sunday afternoon, adding a moment later, "His legacy is -- amazing."