Here's one way to be more relevant

All six International Olympic Committee presidential candidates have, to varying degrees, called on the organization to play a bigger role in the world. In a word, to be more -- relevant. Each has stressed the key Olympic values: friendship, excellence, respect.

Now comes Friday's episode in the San Francisco Bay Area, where a television station and the National Transportation Safety Board have had to apologize for their roles in the broadcast of fake, racially insensitive names of the pilots flying Asiana Flight 214. A third person died Friday in connection with crash and more than 180 were hurt when the Boeing 777 slammed last Saturday into a seawall and then skidded down the runway at San Francisco International Airport.

In a segment that aired at noon Friday, station KTVU identified the pilots as "Ho Lee Fuk," "Wi Tu Low," "Sum Ting Wong" and "Bang Ding Ow."

In a written explanation, the station later said it "never read the names out loud, phonetically sounding them out," and on air, KTVU anchor Frank Somerville added, "There's just no other way to say it -- we made a mistake … we offer our sincerest apology."  The NTSB, meanwhile, said a summer intern confirmed the "names" to KTVU when a station reporter called with an inquiry; it added its apology as well.

Asiana has identified the pilot and co-pilot as Lee Kang Kook and Lee Jung Min.

What does this have to do with the Olympics?

The smart candidate would immediately see the opportunity for an Olympic-themed dialogue on advancing cultural understanding and tolerance -- and the right person to foster it is already one of the key members of the so-called Olympic family, Korean Air chairman Yang Ho Cho, who as it happens is one of the world's foremost experts in one of the hardest things to both define and put into practice, the notion of enterprise culture.

Among the six presidential candidates, for instance, Singapore's Ser Miang Ng has repeatedly called for inclusive dialogue while stressing the notion of being a "universal, unifying" leader as the IOC faces "new realities and opportunities." Another, C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei, the president of the international boxing federation, has highlighted the value of education in schools worldwide to showcase the Olympic values. Ukraine's Sergei Bubka, in his wide-ranging 28-page manifesto, says the time is now for the IOC to take the "lead role" in ensuring the movement becomes "even more relevant."

Almost without exception, reports last week about the crash of Asiana 214 -- apparently aiming to build in background -- sought to frame the crash as a wider indictment of South Korean aviation. Time and again, there were references to fatal crashes in the 1980s and to the crash of Korean Air flight 801 in Guam in 1997, which killed 228 passengers and crew.

As readers of Malcolm Gladwell's 2008 best-selling book "Outliers" know well, Cho effected a massive cultural change at Korean Air after the Guam crash. Junior pilots were encouraged to speak up to their seniors, to whom they previously might have shown considerable deference, even if the senior pilot might well be on course for disaster. All pilots had to learn to speak English, the language of the global control tower, better.

Cho tends to run on the quiet side. Even so, he is a first-rate thought leader.

For many years now, Korean Air's record has been spotless. Of course, every day is a new day. An accident can happen at any time.

Even so, again and for emphasis, Korean Air's record has not been accident-free, it has been an industry leader.

In 2006, for instance, as the Wall Street Journal noted recently, the International Air Transport Assn., a trade group for the world's major airlines, certified that Korean Air had achieved the "highest standards and best practices for safety."

At the same time, Korean Air has also become a major player in other areas of interest. The company recently announced plans to construct a 73-story, $1-billion tower in downtown Los Angeles, for example, that would be the tallest building west of the Mississippi River and, as the LA Times noted, a "symbol of South Korea's status as an up-and-coming economic powerhouse."

Just blocks from Staples Center, the home of the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers and Kings, the building would further enhance the ongoing re-development of downtown LA. At 1,100 feet, the tower would be one of the tallest in the United States -- taller even than the Chrysler Building in New York.

Two years ago, Cho led Pyeongchang's bid for the 2018 Winter Games.

The 2018 bid followed narrow Korean losses for 2014 and 2010.

With Cho directing, the 2018 bid fashioned a hugely winning culture.

Of course, he did not do it alone. The prior bids were ever-so-close, led by the-then provincial governor, J.S. Kim. The Korean Olympic Committee's leadership, with Y.S. Park, proved considerable as well.

Backstage, perhaps, there might have been, well, let's say "discussions" among the various bid factions, which included the various levels of government, corporate supporters including Samsung and the KOC. When it came to showtime, however, Cho understood that there had to be one person indisputably in front, that everyone had to be all smiles, that there had to be way more women involved and that everyone had to speak English, a radical change from the 2014 and 2010 bids.

Behind probably the best Olympic bid tagline ever, "new horizons,"  Pyeongchang rolled to a massive victory over Munich and Annecy, with a whopping 63 votes, the highest total ever recorded for a first-round win.

Last week at the extraordinary session in Lausanne, Switzerland, the IOC reached out for nine new members. Only one was Asian, Mikaela Maria Antonia Cojuangco-Jaworski of the Philippines.

The new president -- whoever he is -- could do the institution a lot of good by looking anew at Cho's credentials.

In the meantime, in the aftermath of Pyeongchang's victory, they launched an initiative in Seoul called the International Sport Cooperation conference. Recent attendees have included Ng; Wu; Rio 2016 coordination commission chairwoman and the IOC member from Morocco, Nawal el-Moutawakel; and Wilfried Lemke, the United Nations' special advisor on sport for development and peace.

The ISC series is designed to be relevant and hugely topical. Here's a suggestion for the next conference: the importance in the real world of friendship, excellence, respect, tolerance, diversity and enterprise culture and the IOC's lead role in moving all of that forward.

--

[Disclaimer: Korean Air advertises on this website. I have had no contact with anyone from the company in writing this column.]

A reflective Jacques Rogge

There are precisely two months to go in Jacques Rogge's term as president of the International Olympic Committee. He is not, at least in public, particularly reflective. History will be as it is. At the end of a teleconference Wednesday with reporters from around the world, the president was asked to assess the highlights and disappointments of his 12 years in office. For once, he seized the moment.

The "biggest satisfaction," he allowed, was that he was "able to positively describe" the six editions of the Games on his watch, three Summer and three Winter, as well as the inaugural Summer and Winter Youth Olympic Games, as "magnificent Games or exceptional Games."

He added, in a nod to his predecessor, Juan Antonio Samaranch, who served for 21 years, "You know I will never say, 'The best-ever.' "

Rogge then went on, "The worst day was definitely the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili," the Georgian luger killed in a training accident before the opening ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, adding, "This is definitely something I will not forget."

At an all-members assembly Sept. 10, the IOC will elect Rogge's successor. Six candidates are in the running to replace him: Ukraine's Sergei Bubka; C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei; Switzerland's Denis Oswald; Germany's Thomas Bach; Singapore's Ser Miang Ng; Puerto Rico's Richard Carrion.

Two of the presidential candidates are Asian; Carrion is from the Western Hemisphere. All but one of the IOC's presidents -- Avery Brundage, an American -- have been European. Asked by a reporter from Singapore if it would "be good for the IOC to have a non-European president," Rogge replied:

"I don't think this factor will play in the election of my successor. My colleagues will go for the man they think is the most able to lead the IOC. They will not not [factor in] nationality or continent."

Asked a few minutes later about the influence of the IOC member and power-broker Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah of Kuwait, the president of the Assn. of the National Olympic Committees, who has played a key role in several recent IOC elections and is widely believed to have close ties with Bach, Rogge said, "I have no reason of concern," adding, "I have a very good relationship with him."

Under IOC rules, Rogge is eligible to stay on as a member until 2022, when he would be 80. He said Wednesday, however, that when his successor is elected he will resign his IOC membership and become an honorary member.

It would "not be wise or advisable," he said, to have the incumbent and past IOC president both "running around … and making comments."

He also said he would "not seek to … intervene in the business of the IOC and my successor."

He added, "I will be probably an elder statesman but probably not more than that."

In other developments, Rogge said:

-- The deal sealed last year between the U.S. Olympic Committee and IOC on certain revenue-sharing matters "definitely paved the way" for the nomination announced last week of USOC board chairman Larry Probst to IOC membership. Probst is expected to be made an IOC member at the Buenos Aires session, along with eight others, among them Russian Olympic Committee boss Alexander Zhukov. "We absolutely want a good relationship with the USOC," Rogge said.

--  The three 2020 bids -- Madrid, Tokyo and Istanbul -- are "very close to each other" and the final weeks "will be important." The IOC will pick the 2020 city on Sept. 7, also at the Buenos Aires assembly.

-- Expressed confidence in the operational readiness and security preparations for the 2014 Sochi Olympics: "I am sure they will deliver."

-- Observed that while the leaders of the international wrestling federation, which goes by the acronym FILA, had done "good things," it "remains to be seen" whether wrestling, squash or the combined baseball and softball bid will make it onto the 2020 program. "You understand I will be neutral," he said. This, too, is a decision to be taken in Buenos Aires.

-- Said that while the IOC has "encouraged our friends" at the 2016 Rio organizing committee to "accelerate" preparations, "there is no concern whatsoever" with the Games there just three years away.

Rogge was also asked an intriguing question -- by a Brazilian reporter -- about the recent demonstrations there linked to the Confederations Cup soccer tournament. Were those protests a sign that "big sporting events will have to change as well?"

"Well," Rogge said, "definitely we have to explain very clearly to all the public that the investment made in the Olympic Games is going to be for sustainable legacy for generations to come.

"That is the message that we are sending. We will declare it very clearly in the future. Yes, the Games are a force for the good. Yes, the Games improve society.

"… Most people," he said, "don't know exactly what the investments are."

Looking presidential

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- At every edition of the Olympic Games, Summer or Winter, the International Olympic Committee president stands up before a global television audience of billions of people to say a few words. The cameras, like it or not, take the measure of the man.

The president, for lack of a better word, has to look -- presidential. He has to match the moment. He has to appear calm, confident, in control. This is what Jacques Rogge has done for the past 12 years and Juan Antonio Samaranch for the 21 before that.

The six candidates running for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee took Thursday to the lectern here at the Beaulieu conference hall, each seeking to make the case that he has what it takes -- the gravitas, the stage presence, the know-how.

This was uncharted territory for the IOC. It had never before asked the presidential contenders to get up and speak before the assembled members like this. Thus the pressure was on. While it was evident the race was surely not going to be won -- obviously there were no ballots cast Thursday for the presidency -- it could, like any campaign, with a misstep of some sort, be lost.

The early returns:

"You think -- how would this person look standing at the front of the world representing the organization? It's a helpful exercise," Canadian member Dick Pound said. "It's far better than sort of, 'Let's have a coffee.' This is a kind of a platform."

Denis Oswald of Switzerland, one of the six: "I wouldn't say it will change the course of the election. It probably will position each of the candidates better."

The presentations wrapped up a two-day so-called "extraordinary session" at which the IOC heard from the three 2020 bid city candidates -- Istanbul, Madrid, Tokyo -- and selected Buenos Aires to play host to the 2018 Summer Youth Games.

The Argentinian capital defeated Medellin, Colombia, in the final round of voting, 49-39.

The IOC will be in Buenos Aires in just two months for the historic assembly at which it will pick the 2020 site and its next president. The 2020 vote will come Sept. 7; the presidential vote goes down Sept. 10.

The six candidates spoke Thursday in this order: Puerto Rico's Richard Carrion; Singapore's Ser Miang Ng; Germany's Thomas Bach; C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei; Oswald; and Ukraine's Sergei Bubka.

Bach has long been considered the front-runner. Even so, there's a current that insiders have taken to calling "ABB" -- "anyone but Bach," a term that has gained traction within the last several weeks. Will it come to define the race?

For his part, Bach is completely sanguine about the entire thing. He has said many times and in many ways that he is not running against anyone; rather, he is running on his own record and in favor of his own ideas.

"This is not about being the favorite," he told reporters after emerging from the auditorium. "I'm an athlete," a fencing gold medalist at the 1976 Montreal Games. "This is like a sports competition. It does not mean anything if you feel well in the warm-up rounds or the test competitions. It's about [being] fit on the day of the big final. And the big final is on the 10th of September."

Another element in the campaign: what role will the Kuwaiti power-broker Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, the IOC member and president of the Assn. of National Olympic Committees, want -- or seek? He and Bach have long enjoyed a cordial relationship. Is that a plus for Bach -- or given the sheikh's hand in several recent winning elections, not so much, with some members perhaps cautious about the perception of too much of a two-for-one deal?

One more dynamic: what role, if any, will Rogge play in the election? He has sworn to be studiously neutral. For sure he will be publicly. Behind the scenes? And especially in the final couple weeks? This remains to be seen -- though it must be said, and for emphasis, that the president's record suggests he would do nothing that would even hint at impropriety.

All six, meanwhile, aim to take over an IOC at a crossroads:

Young people increasingly have alternatives other than sport.

The world's population centers are shifting to Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Though the IOC made it first to post-Soviet Russia and China, FIFA in 2010 staged a World Cup in South Africa and is due to go to Qatar in 2022.

It's uncertain how many more years the IOC's longstanding revenue model -- which depends on roughly a dozen top-tier marketing sponsors and a U.S.-based broadcaster -- can remain reliable.

These, and other, concerns mean one thing:

The next president must have the vision thing.

Ng, for instance, said, "In this rapidly changing world, the IOC will need a new leader with fresh ideas and new energy to carry our flame."

Carrion, too: "The next leader will have to face challenges that are clearly on the horizon and many more challenges that have not revealed themselves yet. That's the leader you want.

"… It is about the trust in the leadership position. That's a decision each and every member gets to make, and I know they will do it carefully and wisely."

Twelve years ago, when Rogge was elected, the IOC was just emerging from the scandal tied to Salt Lake City's winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games. The IOC needed a steady hand. To use the obvious metaphor, the Belgian sailor gave the movement calm waters -- he delivered credibility and consistency.

Now the movement needs that, and more. It needs energy, vitality and innovation.

Just to take one of those examples from above -- how does the pie get divided between the national Olympic committees, international federations and organizing committees? It has not been anyone's experience that any of these entities are lining up to turn money back in.

It's a positive that whoever takes office will not be coming in at a time of crisis. The IOC is, as all six have pointed out in their so-called manifestoes, on solid footing after the Rogge years.

Then again, consider:

The last three editions of the Olympics have taken place in Beijing, Vancouver and London.

The next three: Sochi, Rio and Pyeongchang. Compare the name value of those three against the prior paragraph and ask, how to keep sponsors and broadcasters invigorated against that line-up? That's just one many reasons why this next president has to be innovative.

It would be hugely relevant to know, exactly, what kinds of innovation the candidates highlighted Thursday to their colleagues -- or just how presidential they looked at the lectern.

To see, for instance, the reaction to the proposal in Wu's manifesto that the IOC reinstate visits to bid cities -- that is, in groups, along with involvement from national Olympic committee and international federation representatives. Or his emphasis on the power of education.

Or Bubka's proposals for an "Olympic Future Project" -- a detailed study about the impact of the movement -- as well as the "Council of Elders," an idea drawn from the ancients of Sparta, and an IOC Youth Council and Icon Council, among intriguing notions in his manifesto.

But the IOC opted to run Thursday's presidential presentations behind closed doors.

This is, to be gentle, counter-productive.

Best practices and good governance demands transparency. Why? Because transparency increases public confidence. Simply put, that confidence then enhances relevance.

Not only did the IOC keep out the media, the process it designed also had the effect of keeping out some of the contenders themselves. Once a contender spoke, he was allowed to sit in the room and listen to the others. Until then, he was kept out. So, for instance, Carrion, who went first, heard all the other five presentations. Oswald, who went fifth, heard only Bubka's. Bubka heard nobody's. Does that make sense?

Asked at a very short news conference Thursday evening a general question about the afternoon's events, Rogge said, "I think it was an innovative and a good idea to have the candidates present their programs. The membership liked it very much."

The IOC's next chance to go through this presidential election process will come either eight or 12 years from now. With so much at stake, it seems anachronistic -- at best -- for it to go through key parts of the system in 2013 behind closed doors.

There are so many stakeholders: the NOCs, the IFs, sponsors, broadcasters, athletes, fans. You're not just talking to 100 people. You're talking to billions. What's to hide?

2020: Madrid's day to surge

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Four years ago, the bid team for Rio de Janeiro's campaign for the 2016 Summer Games came here and unveiled The Map. It was so simple, so breathtakingly elegant, so powerful.  In a single stroke of unassailable logic, it showed it all: the Olympic Games had never been to South America.

Three months later, when the International Olympic Committee convened in Copenhagen to vote for the site of the 2016 Games, Rio rolled to a runaway win.

On Wednesday, the three candidates for the 2020 Summer Games -- Istanbul, Tokyo, Madrid -- took their chances for the first time before the full IOC, each hoping to generate the same sort of lightning that jolted Rio.

There was no vote Wednesday. That will come Sept. 7, at another all-members assembly in Buenos Aires. Instead, the idea Wednesday was, again, elemental -- to spark momentum and roll to Argentina.

All three candidates were judged to have performed well by the IOC members. But -- the clear surge Wednesday went to Madrid.

As Alejandro Blanco, the head of the Madrid 2020 bid had put it in a briefing Tuesday with a small group of reporters, "I hope people look into our eyes and see the true passion we have," and by all accounts that's exactly what happened -- the Madrid bid jolted by the appearance on stage of Crown Prince Felipe, who drew wide praise for his energy, enthusiasm and, moreover, elegance in simply telling the IOC, "Madrid 2020 makes sense."

Madrid had been thought by some -- who never did understand the dynamic -- to be lagging in this three-way race.  After Wednesday -- no way.

Then again, this is July. September is still two months away. And as Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., Spain's executive board member, cautioned, what happened Wednesday amounts in the vote column to, as he put it, "nada."

On hand Wednesday were 86 of the 100 members; a handful more are due in Thursday, when the six presidential contenders will make presentations and the IOC will also pick the site of the 2018 Youth Games from among Buenos Aires, Glasgow and Medellin, Colombia.

Some 530 accredited reporters and camera crews were also on the scene at the Beaulieu congress hall, up from 160 at the similar event four years ago. Seventy percent of the 530: Japanese.

There could be no single grand gesture Wednesday like The Map.

There's no geographical singularity at issue in the 2020 race like there was in 2016. Beyond that, the world has changed considerably in four years. Indeed, the dynamics of this race have changed profoundly over the last several weeks, tied to the fluidity of the situation in Turkey.

Once the three finalists were announced, the 2020 race has always been -- even before the unrest in Turkey -- in the first instance a referendum on Istanbul. Do the members want to continue the trend of going to "new horizons" -- say, Korea (Winter 2018) Brazil (Summer 2016), Russia (Winter 2014) China (Summer 2008)?

Implicit in such a move are big construction projects. Istanbul comes with a roughly $19 billion infrastructure bill.

Or does the IOC want to go to a more traditional venue, with lower capital costs? Tokyo, site of the 1964 Games, comes with a $4.9 infrastructure bill. Madrid, bidding for a third straight time -- and of course Barcelona played host to the 1992 Summer Olympics -- is stretching the envelope with a radically low $1.9 billion infrastructure tab. It's that low because, over the course of the prior two bids, pretty much everything there already got built.

For Istanbul, the direction Wednesday was clear. Despite everything, there of course remains  sentiment for the Turkish bid. For those members who might be leaning the Istanbul way -- the trick was to offer sufficient assurance, if not reassurance, that everything not only is would but would be OK, in time reassurance theoretically translating into votes.

This must be understood: in the complex domino-world of IOC bidding, a vote for Istanbul takes Doha and Qatar out of the running for the Olympics, perhaps for a generation, and it's abundantly plain there are those within the IOC who simply do not understand -- or who are outright threatened by -- the potential of the Qatari wealth.

All the presentations Wednesday were offered in closed session so word of what happened is, at best, reliable hearsay -- the IOC opting, despite vows of best-practices and good-governance transparency, not to make the show available on a closed-circuit feed to the nearby media room. During the Istanbul presentation itself, the protests and violence were only slightly mentioned. In the Q&A that immediately followed, the members offered no questions on the topic.

As the members mingled at the IOC coffee break immediately after, the buzz was whether Istanbul had just effected a most sophisticated move -- or not.

At the news conference that ensued thereafter, Ali Babacan, a deputy prime minister for economic and financial affairs, asserted that "non-violent peaceful protest is a very basic human right" and the government "has no problem with that" but does take issue with what he called "some illegal organizations … in the crowd." He also said, "Our police maybe made some mistakes."

On the matter of social media -- Turkish prime minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan has called Twitter a "menace" -- Babacan said, "We have to drive good policies, inclusive policies" but cautioned that government is concerned such new media is "not used for illegal purposes, it is not used for bad purposes."

How this jibes with free speech rights in a liberal democracy, of course, remains uncertain.

In a later interview, Babacan said, referring again to the protests, "It is very natural in any democracy, these things happen. Every incident is a good excuse to learn from, to upgrade our practices, whether it's about freedoms or fundamental rights or so forth. It's a changing country, we shouldn't forget that. It's a changing country, an evolving country, moving for better and better."

He also said that Erdogan -- who, according to most accounts, is the government voice that matters in Turkey -- would be in Buenos Aires: "He is going to be our chief." And he noted that Erdogan, before turning to politics, used to play soccer. The deputy noted of the prime minister, "He is very into sports."

The Japanese came next, unveiling a government-sponsored initiative dubbed "Sport for Tomorrow" comprised of overseas projects aimed at promoting the Olympic movement, the creation of a Japan-based international sports academy and support for the World Anti-Doping Agency.

What the Japanese have -- no problem -- is money. They have a $4.5 billion reserve fund, cash, sitting in the bank.

What they also can tout is security. "The other day my daughter lost her wallet," the Tokyo governor, Naoki Inose, said Tuesday. "It contained $600. The wallet came back. And it contained the cash in the wallet."

What's at issue is whether they can convey to the IOC the passion they assuredly feel, and in particular the way the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan have served as a catalyst for the bid, and indeed the entire country.

Takeda, proclaiming that Japan's "affected areas are now rising," said that by "maintaining your hopes and dreams, you can rise again," adding, "We can show the world … that is the power of sport … by giving them hopes and dreams through the power of sport, it is possible to rise up."

The Madrid team closed the day.

The Spanish capital would have to build only four new permanent venues and three temporary sites. In the world of Olympic bids, this is a novel approach, indeed. Because of the bids for 2012 and 2016, "The promises made then are today realities," Samaranch Jr. explained.

The Madrid bid was presented with but five questions from the IOC members. None dealt with the Spanish economy -- a notion perhaps unthinkable perhaps even six months ago.

"A realistic bid for realistic times," Blanco said at the news conference following their presentation. He also offered an extraordinarily fresh take that perhaps ought to be the new 21st-century template for what the Games should be: "Many years ago [the talk was of] the globalization of the Olympic movement," adding, "The true globalization comes today from television. The Games have to be a reality of the country, a reality of the world in which we live. Madrid presented a bid that is compact and a reality of the times in which we live."

On top of all that came the appearance on stage of the crown prince, the honorary Madrid 2020 president, an Olympian and Spain's flag-bearer at the 1992 Barcelona Games. One IOC member called the prince, who told the members he wanted Spain to again feel "promise and hope," the "star performer of the day."

"Whatever the goalposts were, he moved them," the member said.

Added Craig Reedie, the chairman of the IOC 2020 evaluation commission, emphasizing that he was observing, not endorsing, Madrid "lifted their game."

Two months now until the vote in Buenos Aires. Only one thing matters.

As Masato Mizuno, the Tokyo 2020 vice president and chief executive put it in a comment that could apply to all three bids, "We have to get more votes. We have to work hard from now until Sept. 7."

Probst up for IOC membership

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- It's nearly four years ago now that Chicago got thumped when the International Olympic Committee voted for the 2016 Summer Games host city. For the U.S. Olympic Committee, that was, indisputably, the low point.

It's worth bearing in mind all the time and miles in between then and now amid Tuesday's announcement by the International Olympic Committee of the nomination of nine new members, U.S. Olympic Committee board chair Larry Probst among them.

Probst's membership is for sure a milestone. Over time, it's likely to means more influence for the United States within the IOC, and as the USOC is considering bids for future Games -- in particular, as soon as 2024 -- that could be key.

At the same time, the United States still has a long, long way to go in becoming a power player in the IOC along the lines of, say, Switzerland, with five members.

For now, what Probst's membership marks is, simply, yet another step in the USOC's effort at quiet diplomacy.

He  -- and the other new members - will be sworn in at the end of the all-members assembly in September in Buenos Aires. They will not, repeat not, take part in the voting there.

At that September session, the IOC will elect a new president, replacing Jacques Rogge, who has been in office since 2001, as well as pick the site of the 2020 Summer Games. Madrid, Tokyo and Istanbul are in the race. All three bid cities are making presentations here Wednesday in Lausanne to the full IOC. All six presidential candidates are likewise making presentations Thursday.

Four new athlete members, meanwhile, are due to be sworn in Wednesday. They were elected in voting from the London Games and will be eligible to vote in September.

When the nine new members are brought on board, assuming no other changes, that will bring the IOC membership to 113, spokesman Mark Adams said Tuesday.

Notable among the nine -- only one is from Asia, Mikaela Maria Antonia Cojuangco-Jaworski of the Philippines.

The list includes famed long-distance runner Paul Tergat of Kenya and Athens 2004 high-jump champion Stefan Holm of Sweden.

It also features the head of the Russian national Olympic committee, Alexander Zhukov. The next Winter Olympics, in February, will be held in Sochi.

Russia will then have four members.

The U.S., too -- when Probst is sworn in, the Americans will count him, Anita DeFrantz, Jim Easton and Angela Ruggiero.

Even so, the U.S. has for years lacked significant political influence within the IOC.

DeFrantz has been a member since 1986. She served on the policy-making executive board from 1992 to 2001. She has since run for office unsuccessfully; she is standing this September again for the board.

Easton has in recent years played a markedly reduced role.

Ruggiero is widely seen as an up-and-comer. At the same time, as an athlete member, she is already three years through her fixed term of eight years.

Thus Probst's entry is widely seen as an important step in bringing back a measure of American influence.

"The U.S. is a very strong and important partner of the IOC," Adams said at a briefing Tuesday at the IOC's Lake Geneva headquarters, the Chateau de Vidy. "Larry's nomination is a sign of that and a sign of continuing cooperation with the USOC."

For his part, Probst said in a statement released by the USOC, “I am truly honored to be nominated for membership in the IOC, and extremely grateful for the potential opportunity to serve the Olympic Movement."

Last year, the USOC and IOC resolved a longstanding dispute over certain television and marketing revenues. Probst's nomination is a reflection of that ongoing USOC-IOC "cooperation." It is by no means a quid pro quo for the deal.

Probst becomes the first USOC president -- as the jargon goes -- as IOC member since Sandy Baldwin. That's 11 years ago.

Bill Hybl served as USOC president and IOC member for two years, 2000-01.

Before that, you have to go back to Bob Helmick. He stepped down in 1991.

Again, Probst's entry is important. But it's just one step. It must be reiterated that the USOC has to be thinking in terms of the long run in assessing the political calculus of a Games bid.

Consider:

There are 35 Olympic sports, summer and winter. The United States has no presidents among any of those 35 federations. It has one -- just one -- secretary general from among any of the 35, Svein Romstad, who runs the luge federation from, of all places, Atlanta.

Last year, American Doug Beal ran for the presidency of the international volleyball federation. The convention and election were held in Anaheim, Calif. Even so, he did not win.

The United States does, in fact, boast some international sports federation presidents. But they are not Olympic sports. They are in sports such as softball, surfing and cheerleading.

Then again, the situation now is better -- way better -- than in October, 2009, when Chicago got rocked.

U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati was elected in April to a four-year term to the FIFA executive committee.

USA Basketball chief executive Jim Tooley is in line to become FIBA Americas president for 2014-18.

Max Cobb, the USA Biathlon president and chief executive, heads the International Biathlon Union's technical committee.

These things, simply, take time.

This is what Probst came to understand in Copenhagen in October, 2009.

Before that, he did not totally understand how demanding the USOC board chairman's job was. Nor did he grasp fully how much time and how much travel it was going to take.

The next January, Scott Blackmun came on board as the USOC's chief executive.

Together, they vowed to repair the USOC's standing in international relations.

They said, privately and publicly, that relationship-building took time and effort. They said they were in it for the long haul.

Instead of sending staffers to meetings, Probst or Blackmun -- sometimes both -- started showing up.

Now, Probst and Blackmun serve on IOC committees. Probst is, as well, on the board of the Assn. of National Olympic Committees.

Blackmun, for that matter, is here in Lausanne for the second time in three weeks. He was here the first time for the ANOC assembly and is back now for an IOC marketing commission meeting.

It's active engagement. That's what it takes. That's what got Probst nominated Tuesday.

It's going to take more -- a lot more -- to win the United States an Olympic Games. Everyone should keep that in mind.

2020: Signals in black and white

The 2020 evaluation report the International Olympic Committee published Tuesday ran to 101 pages, without annexes, maps and so on. This so-called technical report was finalized in April, before the unrest erupted in Istanbul, and so the IOC is in the sensitive position of having put out a document that may have already been overtaken by events. Even so, it is clear that this report describes Istanbul as a large and complex city with a widespread plan that would be more difficult to deliver than Madrid's or Tokyo's; that Madrid is in good shape in terms of compactness and things already being built; and that Tokyo, in terms of risk, is predictably the least problematic.

The riots and protests almost surely have enhanced the chances of the other two candidates. As Istanbul's mayor, Kadir Topbas, said Monday, images of the violence have tarnished Turkey's image, and if it keeps going on, "Istanbul stands to lose."

The IOC will meet next week in Lausanne, Switzerland, to hear presentations from all three 2020 bid cities. It will pick the 2020 winner by secret ballot Sept. 7 at a session in Buenos Aires.

The challenge confronting the Istanbul bid is straightforward. As the evaluation report notes on page 9, "Istanbul 2020 aspires to reposition Turkey and to foster global understanding and inclusiveness by being the first secular Muslim country to host the Games."

At the root of the unrest in Turkey, however, is the perception among many of the protestors of a shift away from the secular and toward the religious -- that is, toward a more Islamic society.

That has to give pause to any thinking member of the IOC.

Asked on a conference call Tuesday with reporters about the violence, Istanbul 2020 bid leader Hasan Arat said, "We will be very open. Now the protests are largely calmed down. We will tell them how it starts and how it ends. We will answer any questions they have," adding a moment later, "IOC members are very experienced, and they understand the Games are seven years away."

At the same time, there are indeed bound to be questions.

Like -- the evaluation report says in describing the Istanbul project, on page 10, "As a major user of social media, an emphasis would be placed on the use of social media, particularly with regard to engaging young people." How, exactly, would that work in a country where the current prime minister has called Twitter a "menace," and says, "The best example of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society."

Or -- turning to a more regular evaluation report subject, traffic:

The transport plan for Istanbul's 38 venues, divided into four zones and seven venues "across the city"? The bid says travel times would amount to a maximum 35 minutes. The commission? That "may be optimistic for the most distant venues."

Istanbul's population now totals 13 million. It's due to grow to 16 million by 2020 with car ownership growing by 10 percent annually. Even with an expanding metro system, the commission thus "believes that the risk of road congestion during the Games remains high."

Compare that to the language for Tokyo's transport section: "robust."

Note the difference in the IOC code words for the "ambitious" Istanbul opening ceremony: "close attention," "detailed planning," "operational complexities."

Or the dry, non-judgmental way the report assesses the Spanish economy. It notes that in 2012 it was in recession. Then it simply cites growth rates between 2013 and 2016. Then: "the Commission believes that [the] Spanish economy should be able to support the delivery of the Games."

This, of course, has been for many the primary concern about the Madrid campaign -- and that's all the report has to say about it, no more.

That, though, is not the most interesting take-away in this report.

Normally, evaluation commission reports tend to be so technical and analytical that many IOC members, candidly, don't even read them.

This 2020 evaluation report, however, is -- even factoring in the unrest in Turkey -- worth a close read. There are, like the Istanbul traffic and the Spanish economy, signals in this document that are there to be read. Whether they ultimately prove decisive is yet to be determined, of course -- but they are for sure there in black and white.

On page 68 comes a distillation of Tokyo''s finances, what's drily called a "Hosting Reserve Fund." That's the $4.5 billion in cash that's been sitting in the bank since Tokyo bid, and lost, for the 2016 Games.

Again, and for emphasis -- that's $4.5 billion, in cold cash.

That sum is held by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The national government has pledged to spend the money -- estimates vary from $1.5 to $1.9 billion -- needed to re-do the Olympic Stadium in time for the 2019 Rugby World Cup and, if Tokyo wins, the 2020 Summer Games. So that's money that wouldn't come out of the $4.5 billion.

As the commission notes on page 68, that $4.5 billion "exceeds the proposed amount of government funded capital expenditures associated with the Games and its presence significantly reduces the risks normally inherent in the delivery of Games infrastructure by government."

In the very next sentence: "Furthermore, during the Commission's visit, it was clarified that the fund, which was established at the time of Tokyo's bid for the 2016 Games and has remained in place since that time, could also be used for Olympic-related purposes not linked to construction, provided that the appropriate authorizations were obtained."

Olympic-related purposes not linked to construction?

The mind can imagine dozens if not hundreds of uses for such a fund -- all of it legal, all of it appropriately authorized.

Particularly since the report also helpfully notes that no capital investment would be requires for transport, airports, accommodation, electrical infrastructure or security.

Little wonder the Tokyo 2020 bid team adeptly put out a press release noting, among other matters, the "several references" to the "Hosting Reserve Fund" and saying it was, overall, "extremely pleased."

Smart USOC executive play

Here's why the U.S. Olympic Committee is trending in all the right directions under chief executive Scott Blackmun. On Wednesday, the USOC announced an executive team re-shuffle, keynoted by the hiring of Benita Fitzgerald Mosley as what's called the "chief of organizational excellence," in essence chief operating officer.

Fitzgerald Mosley, 51, comes back to the USOC from USA Track & Field, where she was chief of sport performance. Last summer in London, the U.S. track team won 29 medals -- one shy of the audacious Project 30 goal set out by former USATF chief executive Doug Logan, who hired Fitzgerald Mosley and then charged her to see it through.

Fitzgerald Mosley is the real deal, one of the most intelligent, articulate and capable executives in the United States. That's right -- any business, not just sports. It is the USOC's good fortune that she is working in the Olympic movement, and that she thoroughly understands not just the scope and nature of its mission but, as well, all its component pieces.

It is a coup for Blackmun to get her back in Colorado Springs, Colo., the USOC's longtime base.

For emphasis: it is the USOC's gain and, candidly, USATF's loss.

Fitzgerald Mosley is the 1984 Olympic 100-meter hurdles gold medalist. She served the USOC previously as director of its Chula Vista, Calif., Olympic Training Center (1995-97), of all three USOC Training Centers (1997-2000) and of its public relations programs (2000-01).

From 2001-09, she was was president and chief executive of Women in Cable Telecommunications.

"I'm excited about working with Scott," Fitzgerald Mosley said, simply, in a telephone interview from Des Moines, Iowa, where the U.S. track and field national championships are underway.

She is due to take up her new position in August.

"I'm extraordinarily excited about this addition to our team," Blackmun said in a statement. "We have to ensure that we continue to evolve as an organization and hold ourselves to the same standards as our athletes, and Benita will help us do just that."

For one thing, what Fitzgerald Mosley will do is bring an athlete's perspective to executive-level meetings in the Springs. Everyone else in that room might think they know what an athlete wants or needs. Fitzgerald Mosley knows for sure. That's invaluable.

For another, Fitzgerald Mosley brings diversity. There's no getting around this. She is African-American. She is female. Blackmun has repeatedly pledged that enhancing diversity is a USOC priority, and Fitzgerald Mosley's hiring is proof that the USOC is not just talking the talk.

"He and I certainly didn't talk about that," Fitzgerald Mosley said, adding, "I certainly recognize that's a plus in my hiring. Breaking through barriers or at least overcoming them is something I'm used to doing as hurdler."

Blackmun has plenty this 2013 on his plate, in particular the contours of a potential 2024 Summer Games bid and the search for a chief development officer who could multiply fund-raising levels. Practically speaking, that means Fitzgerald Mosley is going to have plenty to do, too -- again, a smart play by Blackmun.

Unlike some chief executives who are control freaks, Blackmun is more than confident enough in himself to hire someone as capable as Fitzgerald Mosley, to not be threatened by her and to trust her and and the rest of his team to get their jobs done. This is the winning culture he has helped create at the USOC since coming on board in January, 2010.

Take note of this USOC statement:

"Fitzgerald Mosley will oversee a number of organizational priorities that will utilize her unique perspective, including athlete career programs and the athlete ombudsman's office. Additionally, she will assume many of the responsibilities of outgoing Chief Administrative Officer Kirsten Volpi, including diversity and inclusion, human resources, facilities, NGB organizational development, security, and strategic planning."

Volpi is leaving the USOC to return to the Colorado School of Mines, in Golden, Colo., west of Denver, where she previously served as chief financial officer.

In other changes:

USOC chief financial office Walt Glover will take on further responsibility for information technology and audit. He will report to Blackmun.

Rick Adams has been named chief of sport operations and NGB relations. He will add oversight of the three Olympic Training Centers to his NGB organizational development portfolio. He will report to Fitzgerald Mosley.

Mike English, who had been chief of sport operations, is leaving.

Medellín: a city transformed

MEDELLIN, Colombia -- High atop the Santo Domingo barrio in this city's First District sit, incongruously, three black slate cubes. This is the $4 million Spanish Library, opened in March 2007. The library features books, computers, community meeting rooms, art exhibits and, intriguingly, what's called a ludoteca, run by a public agency called INDER, staffed by a specially trained worker in a green-and-gold uniform. Always -- green-and-gold. That's the marker that it is official. That's the signal that it is safe.

A ludoteca is a mommy-and-me hang-out spot for moms and kids ages 1 to 5. There are balls and mats things to roll on and play with, an immersion in sports from the get-go. "This program is really great," says Ana Maria Acevedo, 32, who was there one day recently with her 23-month-old, Roxana Echavarria. "We feel we are working together."

Around Medellín, there are now dozens upon dozens of ludotecas. "Through sports," says a senior city spokeswoman, Paula Bustamante Jaramillo, "you remove them from conflict. You give them room. You give them tools. Violence is about easy money. If you change the context from the beginning, if you make it a family context from the beginning, then the whole context is different. It is so beautiful. And it is so simple."

Twenty years ago, Medellín was known as the most dangerous city in the world.

Now it is, truly, a city transformed.

Now it is bidding for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, against Buenos Aires and Glasgow, Scotland. The International Olympic Committee will select the winner July 4 at an all-members assembly in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Medellín's candidacy poses a fascinating test for the IOC.

At issue, bluntly, are 20-year-old stereotypes of Medellín and, for that matter, all of Colombia -- cocaine, coffee, corruption -- amid the axiom that politics, especially sports politics, can sometimes be as much about perception as reality.

Reality check: the drug lord Pablo Escobar has been dead since December, 1993.

That is a generation. That is long enough to grow up in in Medellín and to get so good at bike-racing that you can go to the London Games and win a gold medal.

"I travel all over the world to participate in sport competition and I am always asked the question about safety in Colombia," said 21-year-old Mariana Pajón, the 2012 women's BMX London champion. "And I am constantly having to tell people, including my fellow athletes, that Medellín is not what people think it is."

The Youth Games is the pet project of the current IOC president, Jacques Rogge. It came to life midway through his term, in 2007, and was envisioned to be set in a city and country that was never going to be able to stage the full Olympic Games.

Thus, for instance, the inaugural edition of the Summer Youth Games went to Singapore in 2010. To win those Games, Singapore beat Moscow. Russia of course put on the 1980 Summer Games and will stage the 2014 Winter Games -- not to mention a raft of other events in the coming years, including the 2018 soccer World Cup and the 2015 swimming world championships.

To keep the project afloat, however, the second edition of the Summer YOG is due to go to Nanjing, China, in 2014 -- just six years after the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. The budget is believed to have soared to more than $300 million.

Within influential Olympic circles, there are concerns that already YOG has overgrown its original mandate.

Assessing the three 2018 YOG candidates:

In 1997, Buenos Aires bid for the 2004 Summer Games, eliminated in the first round, losing a run-off vote with Cape Town, South Africa. Buenos Aires also will play host to the IOC session this September at which the IOC will both elect Rogge's successor and select the site of the 2020 Summer Games.

Glasgow is not only bidding for 2018, it already has been picked to stage the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Moreover, Scotland is of course part of the United Kingdom, which obviously just last summer put on the Summer Games. The Glasgow bid file explicitly "seeks to build on the London 2012 Olympic Games and use the momentum to ensure a powerful and impactful YOG six years later."

That leaves -- per the original terms of what YOG is supposed to be all about, a city and country otherwise not in the running for the Summer Games -- Medellín.

If that weren't enough by itself, there's more -- much more -- to recommend Medellín.

In its evaluation commission report issued earlier this month, Medellín was said to present "minimal risk to the IOC."

In part, that's because of the experience the city gained from putting on the South American Games in 2010. The evaluation report praised the "compact concept and use of existing venues" and the depth of "good experience in hosting international and multi-sport events."

It's also because, practically speaking, all the venues are ready to go -- 20 of 24. Because most everything got built, and only three years ago, for the South American Games, the only permanent venue yet to be built would be a new BMX range. Three others would be temporary -- triathlon, sailing and road cycling. The Medellín 2018 operating budget: an estimated $170.5 million.

For good measure, in 2011 the IOC recognized Medellín with its "Sport and Environment Award" for its work at the 2010 South American Games, citing a variety of initiatives.

Others have also taken note of what is going on in Medellín.

In January, the New York Times devoted its "36 Hours" travel feature to Medellín. It cited, among other things, El Poblado, "a villagey part of town that is thick with bars and excellent restaurants."

In March, Medellín won the worldwide "Innovative City of the Year" competition, beating out New York and Tel Aviv, chosen in part for its modern transit system, environmental policies and network of museums, schools, libraries and cultural centers. The contest is sponsored by the non-profit Urban Land Institute in association with the banking concern Citi and the marketing services department of the Wall Street Journal.

Why else did Medellín win? Because, in part, the city averaged 10 percent growth for each of the 10 years between 2002 and 2011, an investment consultant telling the Financial Times earlier this year those are "Asian Tiger" numbers.

Medellín's metro system, incidentally, has its own unique way. Bogota, the Colombian capital, does not have a metro; Medellín does, repelte with cable cars to get to the city's high points. Thus it's a point of enormous civic pride. Stations and cars are spotless. There's no eating or drinking; no graffiti, either. It's all part of what around town is called "metro culture," and to underscore the point there's even a library at the Acevedo station.

This is all part of the transformation. Several years after Escobar died, a new mayor took over, Sergio Fajardo, now the regional governor. A mathematician turned politician, he promoted a wide-ranging agenda that linked education, culture, sports and community development with infrastructure and notable architecture such as the Spanish Library.

The facility that used to be a women's jail near the San Javier metro station? That's now a library, too.

In the Fourth District, near what used to be an enormous garbage dump known colloquially as "Fidel Castro," the architecturally notable Cultural Development Center of Moravia opened in 2008. A few months ago, a kindergarten opened across the way.

"If you build a beautiful library in a poor neighborhood, it gives people a sense of importance; it raises their dignity and gives them access to goods such as education," Fajardo, seen as a presidential contender by 2018, told the Financial Times earlier this month.

"It also brings visitors from other parts of the city -- something that encourages social integration."

The current mayor, Aníbal Gaviria, said in a statement, "Medellín stands today as an example for many cities around the world, because despite having lived through difficult times 20 years ago, we have undergone a true metamorphosis.

"We are now a city filled with life, thanks to the innovative approach taken at every step, both in social programs and urban development."

In April, the magazine U.S. News published a lengthy column entitled "Why Medellín, Columbia is a great retirement spot," citing the "calming and peaceful" red brick buildings and "swatches" of flowers, "friendly, helpful and hospitable" people, always-temperate climate and -- not to be forgotten -- the El Tesoro shopping mall, "as impressive … as you'll find anywhere in the world."

Colombia played host to the 2011 FIFA under-20 World Cup; Medellín staged some matches. Last month, FIFA, obviously satisfied, awarded Colombia the 2016 futsal World Cup.

Also last month, the international sportswriters association, AIPS, held a regional "Sports Games"  in Medellín; 164 journalists from South, Central and North America were on hand, and on May 21 a seminar brought together journalists and Olympic champions Jefferson Perez of Ecuador and Alberto Juantorena of Cuba.

Next year, the United Nations World Urban Forum will be staged in Medellín. Since its first meeting in Nairobi in 2002, the Forum has grown in size and scope as it has hopscotched around the world: Barcelona in 2004, Vancouver in 2006, Nanjing in 2008, Rio de Janeiro in 2010, Naples in 2012.

Some 4,500 people will be in Medellín for the UN event in 2014.

"This," said Juan Pablo Ortega, the chief executive officer of the Ruta N technology initiative in central Medellín and a Fulbright scholar at MIT in 2007-08, "is candidly part of the strategic view -- to be a city of big events."

No one, by the way, is pretending there isn't still crime in Medellín. In 1991, Medellín recorded 6,349 homicides. That number has since dropped by 80 percent.

In its evaluation, the IOC said, "In Medellín, crime is still a problem," then said in the very next sentence the city had made "admirable progress" to "significantly improve the standards of safety in the city." It also said the president of the country "guaranteed" that "all necessary measures would be taken to ensure the security and peaceful celebration of the YOG."

"Foreign investors are keen to do business with Colombia," the president, Juan Manuel Santos, said in a statement. "Over 640 foreign companies have come to Colombia since I took office," in August, 2010, "and they are now more concerned about legal insecurity than physical insecurity. Security is now a non-issue."

When it comes to crime -- there's crime in Buenos Aires and Glasgow. There's for sure crime in Rio and the Summer Games are going there in 2016.

Bottom line: would the UN be coming to Medellín if it weren't convinced the city wasn't just transforming but, indeed, transformed?

Want more evidence of how Medellín has been transformed?

Here's one point to consider:

If Medellín wins for 2018, the opening ceremony will be staged at the same 44,500-seat stadium where the bid committee now has its headquarters -- which, incidentally, is across the street from the aquatics complex with 10 pools. Across a cozy plaza -- where butterflies flutter and parrots, including brilliant macaws, chatter up on the trees -- are the environmental award-winning volleyball, basketball, gymnastics and combat sports buildings. Though they have lights, those halls were built to take advantage of natural lighting and, because the climate is so mild, don't need air-conditioning.

Last November, Madonna -- the Material Girl herself -- played that stadium. Not just one show. Two. Back-to-back.

Here's point two:

Steps away from where the "Fidel Castro" dump used to be sits a soccer field. In his time, Pablo Escobar put up towers and lights so that the people could play ball at night.

Now, that field has new lights and, moreover, new turf. It is run by INDER. The field is busy morning, noon and night.

"For us, the page is turned," the Colombian IOC member and the country's sports minister, Andrés Botero Phillipsbourne, said.

Added the 2018 bid chief executive, Juan Camilo Quintero, "The transformation in our city is huge. We have passed from the dark to the light through the last 20 years," adding a moment later, "The legacy is through sport, education and culture. That is the perfect fit for our city. This is the reason the Youth Olympic Games were created. This is the DNA of that."

Running for Tohoku

SENDAI, Japan -- The anpan is the answer here to a doughnut, a roll typically filled with sweet red bean paste, and the basis of one of the most enduringly popular cartoons in Japan, especially with the 5-year-old and under set, called "Anpanman." The superhero main character -- his head is all anpan -- goes around doing justice. Sadaharu Mishina's 2-year-old loved it. "She watched it a lot," he recalls. "She was very fond of it." The earthquake that rocked Japan on March 11, 2011, hit at 2:46 in the afternoon. Mishina was at his job here in Sendai, the capital city of the Miyagi prefecture, the largest city in the Tohoku region, a city of about a million people roughly 230 miles from Tokyo. At the time, he was an assistant manager at the center-city Holiday Inn.

The earthquake registered at 9.0 on the Richter scale, one of the most monstrous of all time. It then triggered, as everyone knows, a cataclysmic tsunami. The water roared ashore roughly 40 minutes later.

The baby was in pre-school that day, as usual. His wife was at her office. Racing against time and hope, she had left as soon as the quake struck. "I first heard from my wife at 6 p.m.," Sadaharu Mishina says now. "On the way she was informed the child was caught in the tsunami.

"We couldn't do anything. There was no electricity. There was no transport. There was nothing we could do."

The earthquake and tsunami caused massive destruction and occasioned incomprehensible personal loss. Now, more than two years later, the question throughout Japan is not: is there something to be done?

It's: what is to be done?

And how does the Tokyo bid for the 2020 Summer Games, which intriguingly is a project of truly national scope, fit in to the recovery? The campaign asserts that it has an "important role to play in the process of spiritual and physical recovery." How? Why?

An Olympic bid is not -- can not be -- won on the basis of a disaster. The week after the 9/11 terror attacks, the then-mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, suggested all the other candidates in the race for the 2012 Summer Games bow out in favor of New York, saying, "This will show that the terrorists are defeated."

By the time the International Olympic Committee got around to voting, in 2005, London won; New York was eliminated in the second round of voting with only 16 votes.

Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul are now the three finalists for the 2020 Summer Games. The IOC will pick the winner Sept. 7 at an all-members assembly in Buenos Aires.

Tokyo played host to the 1964 Summer Games. There was great symbolism then in that -- in Japan emerging from the destruction from World War II.

As horrific as the earthquake and tsunami were, the situation now is not the same as after the war.

This much is also clear: the Tokyo 2020 bid team is not -- repeat, not -- looking for a sympathy vote.

At the same time, what is also evident -- but what has yet to be made plain internationally -- is the extent to which sport in general and the Olympic bid in particular have played in galvanizing the response within Japan to the 3/11 disaster.

At issue for the Tokyo 2020 bid, of course, is how to tell that story over the final months of the campaign, beginning this week at the Assn. of National Olympic Committees meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Telling the Japanese story has been something of a struggle for prior bids. The 2008 Osaka bid went out in the first round with just six votes. Tokyo's 2016 bid made it only as far as the second round.

The current that has thus dominated the Tokyo 2020 campaign is to find the right message, and strike the appropriate tone -- which leads back to the core question, how much does 3/11 and the response to the disaster matter in telling the story, and why?

“All Japanese have great passion in the heart, but [it's] not easy to show,” Tsunekazu Takeda, the president of the Tokyo 2020 bid and the lone Japanese member of the IOC, said at a briefing Thursday in Lausanne ahead of the ANOC meetings. “Now everybody will be trying hard in this next presentation.”

It's a delicate balance, indeed.

Because if history says a disaster can't form the basis of a winning bid, it's also the case that what is happening in Japan is unique -- and it's right there for anyone to plainly see:

When the Japanese team came home last summer from London, having won a record 38 medals, some 500,000 people lined the streets of Tokyo in welcome.

To date, the bid team has handed out 5.5 million Tokyo 2020 pins.

Last week, after the Japanese national soccer team qualified for the World Cup next year in Brazil by virtue of a 1-1 tie with Australia, the players paraded around Saitama Stadium with a banner that proclaimed, "Hang in there, Japan -- the whole sports family is together."

Takeda said in a recent interview that planning for the bid was well underway before the disaster. Then, when it happened, "We realized again that sports had such a big power."

He added, "Not to benefit just us. We thought we could bring something to the movement," explaining, "Sports can send this message. Because of this disaster, by engaging with athletes, if they persevere, if they don't give up, that kind of attitude can bring positive change to their lives. This positive change is not limited to Japan. Other people in devastated situations -- if they do the same thing, they can achieve whatever dream they have. This is the power of sports."

Eight Japanese medalists last summer in London came from the Miyagi prefecture. "Sports alone can't reconstruct," said Habu Yoshihiro, the vice principal at Miyagi Technical High School. "But sports can make Miyagi prefecture a better place."

He added, "Japan has received the blessing of the Olympic movement for some time," noting the involvement of Major League Baseball as well as FIFA in rebuilding facilities and the U.S. women's soccer team in playing an April 2012 friendly with Japan in Sendai.

"If we receive the honor of the 2020 Games, we could contribute to the Olympic movement in a unique way. It might be a bit spiritual. It would be a Games that only Japan could host."

At the makeshift headquarters of the chamber of commerce in Onagawa, northeast of Sendai, three Tokyo 2020 posters adorn the wall. Onagawa suffered arguably greater losses than anywhere along the Tohoku coast -- more than 80 percent of its buildings, 50 percent of its homes, just under 10 percent of its population of roughly 10,000 people.

The water that day surged into town about 50 feet high. Takahiro Aoyama was then the assistant director of the chamber of commerce. He survived by climbing up to the roof of the four-story building where the chamber was headquartered, then by scrambling -- with three other men -- to the top of a water tower perched on the roof. The water nipped at their heels.

"It was awful to see it come in," Aoyama, now the chamber director, said. "But when it was going out, that was terrifying. Buildings, people. It was hell."

What he also remembers, after it became clear all four of them might live, is just how cold it was that March day. And how, after the sea raged ashore, the sky shook down snow.

Two years later, Aoyama says, "Finally, we have basic infrastructure. There are a lot of challenges. But," using a sports metaphor, "we have a start line."

The local soccer club, called Cobaltore, fields teams from grade school all the way up. One of the boys and a dad were among the dead; for months, there were no practices.

Then, though, it just seemed right to start up again and, said coach Shuo Sumida, "I noticed the power of sports to transcend anything -- to inspire kids, to put a smile back on their faces."

In other places and under other circumstances, this kind of remark might be seen as so much brave talk. In Japan, now, this sort of comment is offered -- regularly -- with earnest genuineness.

"I would like to see smiles on the kids again," said Igarashi Shigeto, whose Heart Light Sendai charity group organizes soccer tournaments, workshops and other activities. This year's tourney will see two dozen kids who had to be evacuated from their homes around Fukushima, near the crippled nuclear reactor.

A United Nations-commissioned expert report issued last month, which has received comparatively little attention, concluded that levels of radiation following the leaks and explosions at the plant were so low as to be "unlikely" to cause health problems among the general public and the "vast majority of workers."

"Japan is an island country. It's our national character to be united," Shigeto said, adding that he is not alone in seeing the 2020 bid as a special project: "We like to show the joy of being Japanese."

Tomoki Kikuchi, now 21, was at judo practice in Sendai when the quake hit. He and 11 of his judo teammates -- with no place else to go -- crammed into a one-bedroom apartment for the next two nights and three days.

Now a fourth-year student at Sendai University, Kikuchi has since spent countless hours cleaning up bricks and debris at local elementary and middle schools. "When I first started," he said, "I would think, when will this end?" Now, "I realize how important it is to support each other."

A third-year student, Takamichi Hirayama, 20, is a national-level rower, in the eight-man event. His captain's sister and another teammate's sister died on 3/11. "The tragedy was so vast," he said, and it wasn't clear whether they should continue to race.

Ultimately, they decided life is for living. Their team took second recently in the Japanese nationals. "If we got 2020," he said, "it would add energy to Tohoku and the country."

Mami Sato, 31, has represented Japan at the past three editions of the Paralympics in the long jump. She lost her lower right leg to cancer when she was 19. On 3/11, her parents' house, just 200 meters from the sea in Kesennuma, was washed out. It took six days for her, down in Tokyo, to make contact with her family -- to learn that her parents had survived and her grandmother, in her 80s, had made it through, too.

"I imagined all the people in Tohoku losing their families," she said. "I remembered being in the hospital myself, how tough it was for me. Those six days were worse. But thinking of all the people who lost their families -- that's even more painful."

She added, "They're both long battles. I keep thinking of the long battles these people are enduring still."

As of April 30, 48,453 people in Miyagi prefecture alone remained in temporary housing, according to the district's own website.

Last year, Sadaharu Mishina was nominated to run with the Olympic torch in the London 2012 flame relay. His day came up last June 25. He flew all the way to England and ran with the flame for about 400 meters in a little town called Morley.

By then, he and his wife had a new baby, a boy, and he had to leave them both to take part in the relay, to fly all the way to England and then get up north to Morley. Go, she said.

"I was very, very nervous," he recalled. "I remember all the people on the side of the road. I thought that being Japanese and not anyone super-famous -- I didn't expect people to cheer me on. But I got so many cheers. I became less tense and more relaxed. The crowd support gave me more energy to run."

This, too: "There was one thing I decided before I got there. The first step I took was for my daughter. The second step was on behalf of Tohoku."

Istanbul 2020's dilemma

The backers of Istanbul's 2020 Olympic bid can seek to spin this all they want. The International Olympic Committee's senior leadership can make like this is all maybe just a passing threat.

But what happened -- and is happening in Turkey -- is not normal. Protests make up the fabric of everyday democracy. But using water cannons and tear gas on thousands of your citizens, and making the front pages of newspapers all over the world -- that's not usual. And when it happens in the context of an Olympic bid, especially with just three weeks to go until you're due to tell your story to the 100 members of the IOC at an assembly in Lausanne, Switzerland, that presents an extraordinary -- if not unprecedented -- dilemma.

Time is ticking. Every day with protests in the streets in Turkey brings the Istanbul bid up against these questions:

Does the IOC want to take on this risk for seven years?

How does the team from Istanbul go now to Lausanne in a few weeks and, in good faith, convince the IOC there's little to no risk?

The unrest in Turkey comes just days after all three 2020 bids -- Istanbul, Madrid, Tokyo -- made presentations at the SportAccord convention in St. Petersburg, Russia, each claiming to be the safe choice in an uncertain world. The IOC will pick the 2020 city on Sept. 7 in a vote in an all-members assembly in Buenos Aires.

In St. Petersburg, Istanbul 2020 leader Hasan Arat reiterated one of the bid's tag lines, saying, "In the past, Turkey bid for the Games as an emerging nation. This time, Turkey is bidding as an emerged nation."

For the IOC, security is -- as the current president, Jacques Rogge, is given to say -- priority Number One. This has been the case since the 1972 Munich Games, when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.

Since April's Boston Marathon bombings, security issues at high-profile sport events have taken on renewed urgency. Plans for the 2014 Sochi Games, now just months away, are being subjected to heightened scrutiny.

It's against that backdrop that the situation in Istanbul and across Turkey continues to unfold.

Monday's protests marked the fourth straight day of unrest in major Turkish cities, the situation escalating with the first reports of deaths at two demonstrations. A protestor in Ankara died after a vehicle slammed into a crowd there late Sunday, according to Associated Press, citing a medical official. And in the southern border town of Antakya, a 22-year-old man died; there were conflicting reports about the cause of his death.

Tuesday saw the IOC leadership headed for New York, and the International Forum on Sport for Peace & Development, jointly sponsored by the United Nations. In Turkey, the protests moved into Day Five; in Ankara, the capital, hundreds of riot police backed by water cannons deployed around the office of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Before leaving on an official visit Monday to Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, Erdogan suggested the demonstrations were tied to "extremists" led by political opponents trying to overthrow his government.

The IOC is used to protests. The peaceful kind come up all the time in Olympic bids. But widespread confrontation with police in an Olympic context -- that hasn't been seen since the Beijing torch relays in London, Paris and San Francisco in the spring of 2008.

This is different. Beijing had won the Games seven years before. Istanbul is bidding.

It's different twice over because, fair or not, these protests are arising in a country that has a Muslim majority. Indeed, it's a primary selling point of the Istanbul bid that going to Turkey in 2020 would make for the first Games in a nation with a Muslim majority. It makes for a fascinating connotative turn of language, incidentally, that the Istanbul team quite deliberately has throughout its bid used the word "Muslim," not "Islamic."

But, of course, that is -- at their core -- what the protests in Istanbul are all about.

The violence was originally sparked by government plans to build on an Istanbul city park.

It broadened Friday into nationwide anti-government unrest that turns on deep-seated concerns that the Turkish government, led by Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), is trying to impose more-conservative Islamic values on the officially secular country.

Which in Turkey better -- or best -- reflects key values there right now?

That community activists helped clean up a central Istanbul park after protests there?

Or that the government last month tightened regulations on alcohol sales and use?

Or that Erdogan has blamed the unrest on on what he called "lies" circulating on Twitter and other social networks: "There is this curse called Twitter. It's all lies … That thing called social media is the curse of society today."

The Turkish mainstream media has provided scant coverage of the demonstrations. On Twitter, however, protestors have shared graphic evidence of wounded protestors.

Bid organizers on Sunday issued a statement that said they were "monitoring the regrettable situation" in Istanbul "very carefully" and while buoyed by the "positive community spirit in helping to clean up and repair damage," the situation remains "fluid."

The statement also says, "Despite these recent events, all sections of Turkey remain united in our dream to host our nation's first ever Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020. The slogan for our Olympic bid is 'Bridge Together' and there is a common desire to unite in the Olympic spirit and show the world that we can work together for a better Turkey."

No matter what, the IOC evaluation commission report, due to be made public June 25, won't mention a word about the unrest. The report, a culmination of visits earlier this year to all three cities, is already in the process of being printed.

On Monday, Denis Oswald, a leading Swiss member of the IOC, speaking in a conference call at which he outlined his plans for his presidential candidacy, said of the situation in Turkey, "It's a beginning of a protest that can happen in any democratic country For the time being we'll see how it develops, how important this protest is. We have had that in many countries where we had Olympic Games.

"I don't think it would necessarily affect the candidature. We are still three months away from the decision. It will depend if this continues and develops, but for the time being I don't think it's a real threat for the candidature."

Germany's Thomas Bach, an IOC vice president and another presidential candidate, also said he didn't think the protests would be a factor in the bid race.

He told the German wire service dpa, "It's not going to have any influence on the decision of the IOC members. All of them are experienced enough to realize that you are talking about a bid for the Olympic Games in seven years."

Both Bach and Oswald are lawyers. One of the things they teach you in law school is a concept called an "excited utterance." It means an unplanned reaction to a startling event -- something that's said so spontaneously it's then considered so trustworthy to be an exception to the rule that bars hearsay from being admitted to evidence.

After police had confronted tens of thousands of people in Istanbul's Taksim Square, here was mayor Kadir Topbaş in an interview:  "As Istanbul's mayor going through such an event, the fact that the whole world watched saddens me. How will we explain it? With what claims will we host the 2020 Olympic Games?"