Governing Bodies
IOC Veteran, Pound Assures on Tokyo 2020
The International Olympic Committee’s longest serving member assured on Thursday (May 20) that the Tokyo Games are “a go”, as IOC officials huddled with local organisers for online talks.
“There’s nothing to indicate that there’s an elephant in the room that we don’t know about,” Richard Pound told AFP two months before the scheduled start of the Games, which have already been pushed from last year due to the pandemic.
Japanese public sentiment is against the mega event, with polls showing a majority in the country want the Olympics delayed further or altogether cancelled.
“Based on everything we know today it’s a go,” Pound said, adding, “I have my ticket.”
“If the host country (Japan) doesn’t want to host, it doesn’t host,” he said, but added that the IOC ultimately retains “the power to cancel the Games if the conditions are dangerous enough”.
Organisers have outlined extensive virus countermeasures to keep the Olympics safe, including barring overseas fans for the first time ever.
But with Japan battling a fourth wave of infections, doctors’ associations have warned that the healthcare system is already overstretched and the Games could add further stress.
As currently planned, there will be less “celebratory stuff, the streets (won’t be) filled with athletes and spectators and so on. The excitement of being in an Olympic city, that’s going to be a lot more subdued”, Pound said.
Athletes will be tested for Covid-19 at the Tokyo airport upon arrival and then effectively isolated at the Olympic village. After competing, they will be asked to quickly leave the country.
“It’s not going to have all the frills and bells and whistles that we’ve come to expect,” he said. “That kind of ambience is not going to be there.”
But “there will be Olympic competitions and the athletes from all 206 countries are expected to participate.”
Pound, a former Canadian swimming champion who later became the first president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, acknowledged the push-back in Japan against the Games, but downplayed its likelihood of forcing a cancellation.
He drew parallels with the 1984 Games in Los Angeles in which there were concerns “about how many Olympic athletes were going to die because of the smog”, and a Zika virus outbreak prior to the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“It was the wrong season and the wrong area (for Zika) but people still thought that Zika would decimate the crowds and the athletes,” he said. In the end, no foreign visitors to the Rio Games contracted the virus.
“So you’ve got to expect some of that stuff and just persist through it,” he said, adding that “communications could be better to try and reassure the public at large.”
“At the moment, the big question is will there be spectators and if so, what percentage of the venues will be available.”
He said the IOC has agreed, in addition to banning foreign spectators, to halving the number of people with Olympic responsibilities entering Japan from overseas for the Olympics, which take place from July 23 to Aug 8.
If the Games are cancelled at the last minute, Pound said, “certainly there would be massive disappointment on the part of the athletes, (and) around the world that this opportunity could not be seized upon”.
The IOC, sponsors, broadcasters and “almost anybody connected with the risks” of putting on the world’s premier sporting event, he said, are insured for that eventuality.
Financial losses resulting from a cancellation “would be significant”. But it “would not put the entire international sports system or the Olympic movement in dire straits”, Pound assured. “We’d have to tighten the belts a little bit of course but it certainly would not cause financial ruin.”
It would, however, be regrettable for competitors as “three out of four Olympic athletes get one kick at the can”, he said.
The Games have only been cancelled on three occasions, because of World War I in 1916 and due to World War II in 1940 and 1946.
The pandemic has also prompted the Canadian swimming team to pull out of a pre-Olympic training camp in Japan.
Plans for some 50 training camps in Japan have been scrapped, the majority due to concerns over the pandemic.
The Canadian team of about 60 swimmers and coaches were originally scheduled to stay in the city of Toyota, about 250km west of Tokyo, from July 9 to July 30, Kyodo reported on Friday.
“We will no longer be doing our holding camp at Toyota City and Chukyo University and will be going straight into the Olympic Games village,”
Also on Thursday, a sudden surge of coronavirus cases has prompted officials to move an Olympic baseball qualifier from Taichung in Taiwan next month to Mexico.
“The decision was forced by new restrictions the local authorities imposed in Taiwan due to a surge in Covid-19 cases,” the World Baseball Softball Confederation WBSC said in a statement on Thursday, specifically citing the limits to foreigners arriving.
The statement added that exact dates and venues for the Mexico tournament were still to be confirmed.
Mexico’s baseball team have already qualified for the Olympics.
Taiwan, Australia and the Netherlands have earned the right to participate in the upcoming qualifier in Mexico alongside two other teams from an Americas regional qualifier taking place later this month.
Mexico’s coronavirus situation is far worse than Taiwan’s. It has recorded about 220,000 deaths and is still counting 2,000 new cases each day.
In contrast Taiwan has had just 2,800 cases and 15 deaths.
-AFP
Governing Bodies
Zimbabwe sports minister among candidates for International Olympic Committee presidency
A total of seven candidates are running for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee with the winner replacing outgoing president Thomas Bach at elections in March 2025 in ancient Olympia, Greece.
Kirsty Coventry:
Age: 41
Country: Zimbabwe
Entry into the IOC: 2013
An Olympic swimming champion and Zimbabwe’s most successful Olympian, Coventry is Zimbabwe’s Sports Minister. She is the only woman among the candidates and the only one from Africa.
Prince Feisal Al Hussein:
Age: 60
Country: Jordan
Entry into the IOC: 2010
Prince Feisal heads the Jordan Olympic Committee and has been an IOC executive board member since 2019. An Executive Board member of the Olympic Council of Asia, Prince Feisal has also held several posts at the Royal Jordanian Air Force.
Sebastian Coe:
Age: 67
Country: Britain
Entry into the IOC: 2020
An Olympic track and field champion and head of World Athletics, Coe also led the organisation for the 2012 London Olympics. A former Conservative Member of Parliament, Coe is also involved in sports consultancy and is a former head of the British Olympic Association.
Johan Eliasch:
Age: 62
Country: Britain
Entry into the IOC: 2024
The wealthy Swedish-born entrepreneur with a variety of business interests has headed the international skiing federation since 2021. He only joined the IOC in July at its session in the Paris Olympics.
David Lappartient:
Age: 51
Country: France
Entry into the IOC: 2022
A rising figure in world sports administration. He heads the international cycling body, UCI, and is in charge of esports within the IOC, having helped seal a 12-year deal with Saudi Arabia earlier this year for the Olympic esports Games.
Juan Antonio Samaranch:
Age: 64
Country: Spain
Entry into the IOC: 2001
The son of the late former IOC president, Samaranch has considerable IOC experience and influence in his six years as vice president and 23 as a member. He headed the coordination commission for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
Morinari Watanabe:
Age: 65
Country: Japan
Entry into the IOC: 2018
Watanabe has headed the gymnastics federation (FIG) since 2016, having been re-elected twice since. He is the first Japanese candidate to run for the IOC presidency.
Governing Bodies
World Athletics boss, Coe and multi-millionaire Eliasch among seven candidates for IOC presidency
World athletics chief Sebastian Coe, multi-millionaire and Olympic newcomer Johan Eliasch and Zimbabwe’s Sports Minister Kirsty Coventry are among seven candidates for next year’s International Olympic Committee presidency election, the IOC said on Monday.
IOC Vice President Juan Antonio Samaranch, son of the late former IOC president, international cycling chief David Lappartient, Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan and international gymnastics federation head Morinari Watanabe are also in the running to succeed current president Thomas Bach.
The 70-year-old German is stepping down next year after 12 years at the helm. The election will be held at the IOC session in ancient Olympia, Greece in March 2025.
The candidates will all present their programmes, behind closed doors, to the full IOC membership in January 2025.
The IOC, with 111 members currently, is in charge of the Olympic Games and the multi-billion dollar industry linked to the world’s biggest multi-sports event.
Bach’s departure comes with the organisation in a financially robust position, having secured $7.3 billion for the years 2025-28 and $6.2 billion already in deals for 2029-2032.
The president is elected to an eight-year first term with the possibility of a second term of four years, if re-elected.
Coe, 67, only joined the IOC in 2020 after a rocky relationship between World Athletics and the IOC over Coe’s ban of Russian track and field athletes almost a decade ago following the country’s doping scandal.
A former Olympic champion with a wealth of experience in the sports world, Coe was previously head of the London 2012 Games and the British Olympic Association. He is also a former Conservative Member of Parliament.
Coventry, 41, is the only woman running for president and the former Olympic swimming champion, who is Zimbabwe’s most decorated Olympian, could become not only the first female president but also the first from Africa.
MALE PRESIDENTS
All IOC presidents have been men, with eight of the nine from Europe and one from the United States.
The 62-year-old Eliasch, head of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), only joined the IOC in July, with the Swedish-born British businessman’s candidacy a surprise for some.
Prince Feisal, 60, is a member of the IOC executive board, having joined the organisation in 2010, while Spaniard Samaranch, with considerable IOC experience in his six years as vice president, headed the coordination commission for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
“The IOC and Olympic movement have made enormous strides over the past decade under the leadership of Mr Bach,” said Samaranch in a statement.
“The IOC now needs a new leader with deep experience of the Olympic movement who can help steer it through this period of upheaval.”
UCI chief Lappartient has been a rapidly rising figure within the sports world after joining the IOC in 2022.
The Frenchman also is in charge of esports within the IOC, having helped seal a 12-year deal with Saudi Arabia earlier this year for the Olympic esports Games.
Japan’s Watanabe, 65, has headed the gymnastics federation (FIG) since 2016, having been re-elected twice since, and is his country’s first ever candidate for the IOC presidency.
Under current rules members have to step down when they reach 70, the IOC’s age limit, unless they are given a four-year extension.
-Reuters
There is currently insinuations that proposed certain elements may have smuggled modifications to amend the Statutes of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) when the body holds its General Assembly next month in Kinshasa, Congo next month.
The confederation will be having its 46th General Assembly on 10th October. It is at such gatherings that amendments are made to existing rules.
According to an article authored by Mansour Loum, the editor of Sports News Africa, some national football federations have denied being party to proposed amendments which were linked to them.
One of such is coming from the Equatorial Guinea Football Federation which has denied signing proposals being circulated relating to amendments to CAF Statutes.
It is claimed that a circular dated 8 September has been sent to CAF member associations. Signed by CAF General Secretary, Véron Mosengo-Omba, it is titled: “Proposals for amendments to the CAF statutes and regulations for the application of the statutes, as well as the rules of procedure of the CAF General Assembly, presented by the national associations.”
Seven member associations were quoted as sponsoring the amendments. They are: Botswana, Comoros, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania and Niger.
But Equatorial Guinea has denied being party to the proposed amendment which seek to remove age barrier for candidates seeking to be CAF Presidents and also removing zonal considerations in election into FIFA Council.
The current Statute stipulates that a presidential candidate must not be older than 70 as at the date of election.
Most of the national federation members are already approaching that age. In the estimation of the author of the article, Mansour Loum, the current CAF president, Patrice Motsepe, is 62 years old. With the age limit, he could, for example, only run for two more terms.
Continuing, Loum wrote that regarding the elections to the FIFA Council, each zone has a representative on the FIFA Council and candidates for these positions can only be elected by the presidents of the member associations of their group zone.
Thus, the presidents of French-speaking federations can only vote for a French-speaking representative, the English-speakers for the English-speaking group, and so on.
The distribution of seats on the FIFA Council is currently as follows:
Francophone Group – Two members
Anglophone Group – Two members
Arabophone/Lusophone/Hispanophone Group – Two members
One female member elected from among the female candidates, regardless of language groups
The modification of the grouping by zonal unions would mean that all presidents could vote for candidates outside their group, or that the candidates would also no longer be limited to a group.
Several candidates from the same group could be elected to the FIFA Council, while at the same time some groups could no longer be represented.
Equatorial Guinea disputes any request for modification. The football federation president, Venancio Tomas Ndong Micha has reportedly denied being party to the proposed amendments.
“I am writing to you to present the disagreement of the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation with part of the content of the document sent to the CAF Executive Council on September 8, 2024 signed by you (…)
“In this document, there are amendments presented by the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation (…) By this letter, we confirm that the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation has not submitted any amendments to the CAF administration for the 46th CAF Ordinary General Assembly to be held on Thursday, October 10, 2024 in Kinshasa,” he denounces.
Enough to cast doubt on this document sent by the CAF secretary general and the objective targeted. Contacted, a federation president, whose body is not mentioned in the letter, is surprised by these two requests for amendments and wonders about their intentions.
The press release from the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation has sown doubt and now he is questioning the originality of the attachments included in this document which is likely to be talked about between now and the CAF General Assembly.
– Mansour Loum
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