'Pray for our world': the disaster of the Trump presidency and, now, the Capitol insurrection

'Pray for our world': the disaster of the Trump presidency and, now, the Capitol insurrection

In June 2017, Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee president, held a meeting —tumultuous and all but disastrous — at the White House with Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States.

Details of the meeting, held as the IOC was working its way toward what would be an unprecedented double allocation that September of the Summer Games, Paris for 2024 and Los Angeles for 2028, have remained tightly held. Neither the IOC nor Trump have ever issued a formal statement on the matter. Trump, who posted thousands of times to Twitter before the service banned him permanently on Friday, said nary a word on the site about this particular meeting.

After the meeting broke up that June afternoon, it can be revealed, Bach turned to his mobile phone. Multiple sources confirm he said these words: “Pray for our world.”

This is Congress-driven USOPC 'reform'? A 73-year-old gets one 'athlete' board spot, a 64-year-old another

This is Congress-driven USOPC 'reform'? A 73-year-old gets one 'athlete' board spot, a 64-year-old another

Once again, we turn to maybe the very best thing Mark Twain said, a turn of phrase I noted in a column a few years back and repeat for emphasis, because when it comes to Congress and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, you know:

“Suppose you were an idiot,” Twain said. “And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

In this context, we turn to the purported “reform” of the USOPC, its new members of the board of directors formally announced Monday.

After years of investigations and Congressionally mandated governance fixes purportedly designed to fix everything, this — this — is it?

Does anyone at the USOPC realize there's a world out there beyond the 50 states?

Does anyone at the USOPC realize there's a world out there beyond the 50 states?

Does anyone at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee really think through some of the things they announce? Do they understand there is a world out there beyond the 50 states?

Do they care? Do they understand this is why the rest of the world often — and for good reason — thinks the Americans are self-righteous, self-centered and deserving of approbation and scorn?

The rest of the world hates it when we imperiously and sanctimoniously climb up and seize what we believe is the moral high ground and tell all the little people — indeed, lecture them — about what to do.

When are we ever going to stop? Ever?

Breakdancing is not the answer. What is? Wholesale change

Breakdancing is not the answer. What is? Wholesale change

The International Olympic Committee on Monday approved breakdancing — or breaking, as the IOC would have you call it — for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, and for those who remember the spring and summer of 1983, when all the girls had leg warmers and knee warmers, yes, even in the midst of summer, and massive hair and huge shoulder pads and all of us were frosted and perfect, let’s all sing together now to Irene Cara and Flashdance. Don’t be shy. You know the words:

What a feeling

Bein's believin'

I can have it all

Now I'm dancing for my life

Take your passion

And make it happen

Pictures come alive

You can dance right through your life

Top USADA lawyer representing Trump in election case as Rodchenkov Act awaits presidential signature

Top USADA lawyer representing Trump in election case as Rodchenkov Act awaits presidential signature

The president of the United States this week filed suit in federal court in Milwaukee seeking to overturn the results of the November presidential election results in Wisconsin, one of a number of key states won by president-elect Joe Biden.

And this has to do with the Olympic world — how?

In a turn that perhaps not even a Hollywood scriptwriter might dream up, the president’s lawyer in the Wisconsin case, William Bock III, was until recently — very recently — publicly general counsel for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Connecting the dots, the president is now being represented by the same lawyer who until days ago was the very capable chief litigator for USADA at the very same time the highly controversial Rodchenkov Act, which USADA has ferociously championed, sits on the president’s desk, awaiting the president’s signature.

Does this seem appropriate?

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.