The IOC president's dangerously worrisome trip to Tokyo

The president of the International Olympic Committee has this week wrapped up a visit to Tokyo. The questions this visit raises are profound and go to the core of the Olympic mission, which is — as ever — to be relevant in our fragile and broken world.

The Olympic Games are supposed to be different. They are supposed to inspire. To celebrate humanity. They are not per se a commercial enterprise like the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, Premier League soccer or any of dozens of others.

Those leagues are in business to entertain but, more, to make money. The Olympic landscape depends on a revenue component — a significant one, to be sure — but the Olympic Charter, in speaking of “Olympism” as a “philosophy of life,” makes plain that the “goal of Olympism” is to “place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

It thus holds that the revenue component must be — per simple and unassailable logic — but a means to an end.

IOC president Thomas Bach’s visit to Tokyo suggests otherwise. It is thus dangerously worrisome.

'Welcome back America': Does USOPC know world's love for American idea, and ideal?

'Welcome back America': Does USOPC know world's love for American idea, and ideal?

Joe Biden, addressing the nation for the first time Saturday night as president-elect, said it was time to heal and asserted, “We must restore the soul of America.”

Indeed. With the elephant in the room returning to golf in his golden Floridian enclave, we breathe fresh air, a collective sigh of relief. Moreover, it is time for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee to play what should be its vital part in deeply recommitting and reconnecting all Americans to truly be great again.

And to be what the world wants America to be — an ideal. The world loves the idea of America. That is the responsibility of the USOPC: to uphold and advance the best of the American ideas and ideals.

Now comes the question: can it be, can it do those things?

If you ask the rest of the world, “What is the vision of the USOPC,” the answer would be, “We don’t know.” It’s true. Nobody knows. Surely, too, someone would say, “Why should we care?”

Because this is what we have learned over the past four years. Not only is it important to care. It is vital to know what America is and what America stands for.

IOC must 'urgently' re-do esports strategy, this time for real

IOC must 'urgently' re-do esports strategy, this time for real

Six months ago, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach published a remarkable white paper about the state of Olympics, as he saw it, amid the pandemic. More remarkably, it drew — and yet more remarkably still, over the months since has drawn — comparatively little media attention. Like almost zero.

The think piece was called — you’ve got to love this title — “Olympism and Corona.”

If Roger Goodell wrote such a piece about the state of the NFL, or Adam Silver about the NBA, odds are it would be the stuff of hot takes on sports radio and cable TV, and for weeks. Here was Bach thoughtfully trying to sort out the new realities of the most complex puzzle the world knows, the Olympic Games, in reaction to the shifting realities of a global pandemic. Reaction: mostly crickets.

He deserved better, particularly because in the fourth copy block, entitled “Social Impact,” third paragraph, the IOC president signaled to the entire world — if, like, anyone was paying attention, which obviously they were not — that esports ought to be taken seriously. He used the word “urgently.” The IOC almost never uses the word “urgently.” This time, though, it did.

This year of living dangerously, and surely the Olympics can and should be reimagined

This year of living dangerously, and surely the Olympics can and should be reimagined

For the past six weeks, this space has been dark. For the past six weeks, per doctor’s orders, the mandate has been to do nothing — or, to be practical, as little as possible. Thus, for six weeks, instead of writing, the mission has been to read and read and read, and in particular everything about the state of the Olympic movement.

You know what? I have been reporting, writing and observing the Olympic movement since late 1998, since the break of the Salt Lake corruption scandal. That’s 22 years, with 10 editions of the Games. Fair question now, after taking in everything over these past six weeks: when has the Olympic landscape ever been in a more precarious position?

Answer: in my experience, this is the worst.

Without hyperbole: the situation now bears echoes of the movement’s darkest days from the 1970s.

If Kobe were here, what would he say about the USOPC and its mission?

If Kobe were here, what would he say about the USOPC and its mission?

A few days ago, the Borders Commission issued a year-after follow-on report into its road map — 39 different steps — for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee in the aftermath of sex-abuse scandals involving gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar and others.

In essence, many of the 39 steps called for more athlete representation across the U.S. Olympic team and increased oversight over the national governing bodies, or NGBs, that are affiliated with the USOPC. Of the 39, the Borders group said the USOPC is on the way toward implementing 34 and at least part of the way on the other five.

Congress, meanwhile, has been moving ahead with legislation that would include many of the same changes but also include a feature that would give lawmakers the ability to remove the entire USOPC board.

“I give them a lot of credit,” Lisa Borders, the former WNBA commissioner who headed the panel, told Associated Press. “It’s hard for folks to admit they need help. The USOPC not only admitted they needed help, they solicited help, they took help, they embraced it and endorsed it and enabled it. That’s huge. Is it perfect? No. But hugely on track? Yes.”

This space begs to disagree.

The USOPC, heading toward the fall and the annual Assembly, this year to be held online, is a hot mess.

Nothing in our world comes for free: a reckoning long overdue

Nothing in our world comes for free: a reckoning long overdue

A few weeks ago, Stanford cut nine Olympic sports from its 36-team varsity program, saying the pandemic forced it to make hard budget cuts.

Last week, the University of Iowa announced it was cutting men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis and men’s and women’s swimming, saying the athletic department this year would lose about $100 million in revenue and would be operating at a loss of $60 to $75 million. In a note of irony, the $69 million Campus Recreation and Wellness Center, which opened in 2010, and which the school put some $5 million into just last summer for repairs, is due to stage the 2021 men’s NCAA championships.

Iowa is the first Power Five school to cut its swim and dive program amid the crisis. Five other Division I schools, according to the website SwimSwam, have already announced cuts: Boise State (women’s), UConn (men), Dartmouth (both), East Carolina (both), Western Illinois (both).

Nebraska on Friday announced that 51 athletic department staffers will be furloughed from Sept. 1 through the end of the year. Athletic director Bill Moos said earlier, “We are now looking at a deficit in athletics alone … of north of $100 million. If we can get the television revenue or parts of it, with a non-traditional (spring) season, that will help. But each home football game is worth $12 million, and that didn’t count television and our media partners and all those things … Now we have a solid feel for the dilemma we’re facing … that is a daunting exercise.”

This is just the beginning.

The pandemic brings IOC to a moment consequential if not existential

The pandemic brings IOC to a moment consequential if not existential

Greetings anew from Manhattan Beach, California. And how are things? Thanks for asking! People are sick and dying because of the coronavirus. Also, a chunk of the state — bigger than Rhode Island — is ablaze after a siege of spectacular lightning strikes, some 12,000 over the past week, 100 on Friday; on the ground, the destruction is already savage; the air smoky and unhealthy; beyond, it’s only August and fire season has weeks to go. Meanwhile, the utilities are ordering rolling electricity blackouts. School started again but, you know, not in person so no one is happy about that.

Then there’s the political angst, President Obama finally going off on his successor. Here’s a fact: the selection of California Senator Kamala Harris to be Joe Biden’s running mate makes her the first person in the history of the Democratic Party to be nominated — as president or vice-president — as a representative of a state west of the Rocky Mountains.

We are living in weird times. In all of this, there seems to be an element of the apocalyptic. Even the setting sun is not yellow but an iridescent red. Thus the mind quite naturally goes, especially as the red sun sinks into the Pacific, to matters existential or, at the least, consequential.

Being, staying relevant in an 'ever more fragile world in deep crisis'

Being, staying relevant in an 'ever more fragile world in deep crisis'

Welcome to Day 3,042 in Coronaville. It’s back to Lockdown 2.0 here in Manhattan Beach, California, where nobody can even get a haircut and as of Saturday you are liable to get a fine of up to $350 if seen in public without a mask and, to quote Alice Cooper, school’s out not for just summer but for a long time to come.

Looking out across the top of that mask, the United States on Thursday reported 75,600 new coronavirus cases, a single-day record. The situation is so bad across the 50 states — Thursday was the 11th time that the past month the single-day record had been broken — that, for now, Americans are not welcome in the European Union.

India, the New York Times also reported, hit a million cases in a surge that has forced a return to lockdowns there. India ranks third in the world in both total cases and new ones, the Times further said, adding that its rate of new infections is on track to overtake Brazil’s.

And what’s this?

The International Olympic Committee, capping a series of meetings with its first-ever virtual assembly on Friday, remained resolute in its determination to stage the Summer Olympics next summer in Tokyo.

Christian Coleman v. testers, part II: what is 'reasonable'?

Christian Coleman v. testers, part II: what is 'reasonable'?

The only reasonable conclusion to reach in the matter of the world’s anti-doping testers v. Christian Coleman, the world’s fastest man across 100 meters, is that the testers are seriously pissed off that Coleman got off the first time because they, the testers, didn’t understand their very own rules and now they’re targeting him.

Could, maybe should, Coleman have been more careful? That’s a reasonable question.

But let’s get this right out of the way. Coleman is one of the bright stars of the American track and field universe. Though the missed test took place last December 9, this controversy is erupting now. To try to take Coleman out now — amid the national, indeed international, furor tied to the grief and anger that generations of black Americans have suffered at the hands of institutional systems that are unfair because they or, worse, the people in charge of them, are not reasonable — will not prove constructive. Not at all.

Indeed, this case underscores a lot of what’s fraught about the anti-doping control system.

2022 worlds: how not to grow track and field in the United States

2022 worlds: how not to grow track and field in the United States

We take you back to the halcyon days of 2015, when Eugene, Oregon, that college town in the middle of nowhere, was abruptly awarded — without the usual formal competitive bid process — the 2021 world track and field championships.

The United States has never staged the track worlds. The international governing body, then called the IAAF, now known as World Athletics, has always been keen to have it in the States. The soon-to-be-outgoing IAAF president, Lamine Diack, and the president of USA Track & FIeld, Vin Lananna said the stars aligned, Lananna calling the awarding of the 2021 championships a unique “one-time opportunity.”

Diack is now under house arrest in France, the focus of a criminal inquiry into a wide array of track- and Olympic-related matters. U.S. Justice Department officials, meanwhile, are reported to have taken an interest into the awarding of the Eugene bid.

But wait.

The whole idea of staging the track worlds in Eugene, per Lananna especially, was to grow the sport in the United States.