How to put sport at the service of humankind

How to put sport at the service of humankind

The key purpose of the Olympic movement is not to make money. It is “to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind.”

Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, has many times said the Tokyo Olympics can — should — serve as a “beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times.”

This week, the IOC is due to reveal what it is calling the Playbook, the layers of protocols and policies it has for months been developing in a bid to pull off the Tokyo Games, Olympic and Paralympic, amid the global coronavirus pandemic. The Olympics are due to open July 23. The Paralympics are scheduled to open Aug. 24.

The Playbook, the IOC has made clear, is about trying to create safe bubbles in Tokyo. It will be revised — and revised again — as July 23 draws near.

The Playbook is essential. But there needs to be more.

Bach's legacy is upon him: the world needs not just leadership but his humanity

Bach's legacy is upon him: the world needs not just leadership but his humanity

The International Olympic Committee is due this week to hold its policy-making executive board meeting. it comes more or less with six months to go until July 23, when the Tokyo Olympics are due to commence. To make those six months feel all the more real: that’s 26 Fridays.

In March, the IOC president, Thomas Bach, is going to be re-elected to a four-year term. He has served eight already, once again more or less. These last four will be his last in the office.

Starting with this board meeting, Bach has a unique opportunity. These first eight years have been marked by a succession of crises, some unforeseeable — the Russian doping scandal, the organizational disaster that was Rio 2016, the almost-didn’t-happen PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games.

This space has many times been critical of Bach. His Agenda 2020, for instance? Not much there there. All the same, throughout these first eight years, and this is difficult indeed for Bach’s many critics — some voluble indeed — to comprehend, he has shown genuine leadership. Now he must do more. His legacy is at stake. He has the chance, starting now, to define that legacy rather than let others define it for him.

'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.