Olympics
NO MORE UNILATERAL ACTS, OLYMPICS BIDDING CITIES TO HOLD REFERENDUM
BY LIAM MORGAN
Cities interested in bidding for future editions of the Olympic Games will be asked to hold a referendum before they can be considered as a candidate following a spate of defeats for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), according to Australia’s John Coates.
Coates, the chairman of an IOC working group tasked with devising changes to the troubled bidding process, told reporters here that the requirement is likely to be included in the Olympic Charter when alterations to the document are approved at the Session next week.
The Australian IOC member claimed this would be a “simple way” to arrest the trend of cities withdrawing from the race after losing a public referendum.
An initial field of seven for the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, a tepid campaign which will come to a conclusion when the IOC membership votes to award the Games to either Milan Cortina or Stockholm Åre on Monday (June 24), was whittled down to the final two after a series of withdrawals.
Bids from Calgary, Sion in Switzerland and Innsbruck in Austria were all scuppered by referendum defeats.
Calgary, which hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics, became the ninth straight Olympic bid city to lose a referendum when its residents voted against the candidacy in a plebiscite in November.
The series of reforms proposed by the group, including that Olympic bids should be widened beyond one host city and that a flexible timeline on the awarding of the Games should be installed, are expected to be given the green light by the Session when it takes place from Monday to Wednesday (June 26).
Two “Future Host Commissions” – one for the Simmer Olympics and one for the Winter Games – will be established to replace the Evaluation Commission and will be given considerable power by the IOC as it will recommend cities or a single candidate to the Executive Board.
“The commission will say, if you want to come to us and you’re from a country or region that is going to require a referendum, then you get that out of the way first before you make your proposal,” Coates said.
“It is not unreasonable to say that before we consider you, you have to satisfy us that you have the public and Government support and, consistent with that, if you are from a country that requires a referendum, come to us after you’ve had it.
“We don’t like to see candidates being considered and then withdrawing.”
Coates also confirmed members of the commission would be removed from the panel if their city or country is among those to express an interest in hosting the Games.
This rule will be included in changes to the charter put forward to the Session, Coates added.
Executive Board members will not be permitted to sit on either commission.
IOC President Thomas Bach claimed today that the Session will remain the “ultimate decision-maker” when it comes to awarding the Games and the new targeted approach would respect the “magic” of the event.
Bach said that the IOC was not looking to restrict the number of candidates and insisted the IOC itself is a “loser” when cities end their bid for the Games.
“You could also count in some cases at least the IOC among the losers,” he said.
“If you have this ongoing discussion on do we continue a candidature, what are the implications, do we withdraw and the referenda situation, for example – this is not a very comfortable position for the IOC.
“These losers that lost just one election, for us it is even more difficult because according to the political landscape we are living in this moment, you lose this candidate for the next election and then the next one after that.
“It has an exponential effect.
“You have to look to the future and there minimising the number of potential candidatures cannot be the purpose.”
A total of six recommendations were made by the five-member working group – which also includes Slovakia’s IOC Athletes’ Commission vice-chair Danka Bartekova, Argentina’s Gerardo Werthein, Lydia Nsekera of Burundi and Li Lingwei of China – to the Executive Board last month.
Bach said these have been “made more concrete” by the panel and they had been “translated into potential amendments to the Olympic Charter”.
– insidethegames
Roy Jones Jr has been handed the Olympic gold medal he was controversially denied in 1988 in an extraordinary act of sportsmanship by the South Korean fighter who beat him.
Hall of Fame boxer Jones shared a video on Wednesday from two years ago that showed Park Si-hun visiting the American’s ranch in Pensacola, Florida to present him with the light middleweight gold medal.
“I had the gold medal, but I want to give it back to you. It belongs to you,” Park said in the video through his son, who translated.
Jones, who was overcome with emotion by the gesture, covered his face with his hand before saying: “Wow, that is crazy.”
Their match at the Seoul Olympics remains one of boxing’s most contentious moments as Jones appeared to dominate the fight but lost to Park by a 3-2 decision that drew instant criticism and sparked enduring controversy.
Despite losing the gold medal match, Jones was selected as the Val Barker Trophy winner as the best boxer of the 1988 Olympics.
Jones went on to become a four-division world champion and is regarded as one of the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighters of all time.
“In 1988, I was robbed of the gold medal in what became one of the biggest controversies in boxing history,” Jones wrote in his Instagram post.
“By the grace of God, a couple of years ago, the man who won that medal made the trip from South Korea to my home to return it to me, feeling it was rightfully mine.
“I hope you enjoy this moment as much as I did.”
-Reuters
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U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday creating a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, an administration official told Reuters.
The task force, made up of members from Trump’s cabinet and government agencies, will coordinate federal, state and local government work on transportation, the official said.
It also will “streamline visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media,” the official said in an email.
The United States will host the Olympics in Los Angeles in three years. Trump, a Republican who lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, has expressed pleasure that his second term will coincide with the Olympics and the World Cup.
“During his first term, President Trump was instrumental in securing America’s bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The president considers it a great honor to oversee this global sporting spectacle in his second term,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Monday.
Last month organizers of the Los Angeles games released the first look at the Olympic competition schedule . The city had also hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984.
“The creation of this task force marks an important step forward in our planning efforts and reflects our shared commitment to delivering not just the biggest, but the greatest Games the world has ever seen in the summer of 2028,” Casey Wasserman, the chair and president of LA28, said in a statement.
–Reuters
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By DAVID LEE
Home is many places for swimmer Adaku Nwandu, who was born in China, lives in Singapore and wears the Nigeria flag on her swimsuit.
And it is at her current home in Singapore that the 17-year-old is making her debut at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH).
In the second heat of the 100m freestyle at the WCH Arena, the teenager, who has a Nigerian father and Chinese mother, led at the turn before finishing third in 1min 0.89sec – she eventually placed 59th out of 82 athletes overall.
After her race, Adaku shared with The Straits Times that she was born and raised in Shanghai, and started swimming when she was eight. Interestingly, it was ice cream that kept her in the sport.
Adaku, who still has the 50m freestyle heats on Aug 2, said: “At a school competition, I didn’t do so well and I asked my dad if we could make a deal. He said if I do better, he would buy me ice cream once every week, and that’s a promise we have kept with each other. And that’s what brought me here.”
In 2023, the family moved to Singapore due to her mother’s work posting. With her fluent Mandarin and love for Asian and spicy food, it did not take long for her to pick up Singlish and enjoy local delights like chicken rice and chilli crab.
She said: “We came here mainly because of my mother’s work, and also because the swimming scene back where I lived in China was a little bit toxic, so she also thought Singapore would be a new experience and better for my swimming.”
By then, she had already committed to representing Nigeria after its aquatics association contacted her after the National Sports Festival in Asaba, where the then 16-year-old was part of the national record-breaking women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.
But Singapore is where she has been honing her swimming skills, as she has set her 50m and 100m freestyle long- and short-course Nigeria national records at meets here.
Noting her improvements, Singapore swimming coach and performance director Gary Tan said: “Adaku has been participating in our system for a while, and we hope it helps her develop as a swimmer and achieve what she wants while training in Singapore with her school (German European School Singapore).”
For someone who is inspired by Olympic champions David Popovici, Caeleb Dressel and Adam Peaty for “their dedication and the way they are able to take breaks for themselves to improve and get back to the water”, qualifying for Paris 2024 on ranking points was a dream come true.
Her Olympic debut was also unforgettable as her swimsuit ripped 20 minutes before her 50m freestyle heat, but she managed to finish second in her heat and 33rd out of 78th overall in 26.62 seconds, just 0.03 of a second off her personal best.
Back in Singapore, Adaku, who is in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme at her school, realised that she needed more of such resilience to reach her goals.
The swimmer, who also plays for the school’s volleyball team, said: “I had a lot of improvement the first year I came to Singapore. But this past year has been especially hard for me with family problems and also school. The workload in my first year of IB made it hard to balance training and school.
“Especially in the next year, I want to focus more on swimming and try to get some new personal bests because this year I just plateaued. I’m looking forward to training harder and preparing for my next competition and hopefully qualify for the next Olympics.”
-Strait Times, Singapore
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