Going for gold: A look at the political and sporting challenges facing the next IOC president

Arab News

17-03-2025

COSTA NAVARINO, Greece: An in tray of Olympic challenges spanning political, social, sporting and operational issues awaits the next IOC president who will be elected Thursday.
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Seven candidates are competing in the first contested International Olympic Committee election since 2013 to replace Thomas Bach, who formally leaves office in June after the mandated maximum of 12 years.
They include two Olympic gold medalists, Sebastian Coe and Kirsty Coventry, and the son of a former IOC president, Juan Antonio Samaranch.
Four are presidents of Olympic sports bodies, including Johan Eliasch from skiing, David Lappartient from cycling, and Morinari Watanabe from gymnastics. Coe also leads track's World Athletics, organized the 2012 London Olympics and is widely viewed as the most qualified candidate.
Three are members of the Bach-chaired IOC executive board that meets Monday: Samaranch, Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan and Coventry, the sports minister of Zimbabwe who would be the first woman leader in the IOC's 131-year history.
Coventry is seen as Bach's preferred choice to be elected by about 100 IOC members invited into an exclusive club from royal families, international politics and business, sports officials plus past and current athletes.
Here's a look at some of the issues facing them:
The US
The Summer Games is the foundation of the Olympic movement, where each of the 207 officially recognized teams competes. Fewer than 100 countries participate at the Winter Games.
For the IOC, bringing the world's athletes together in the Olympic village is a powerful symbol of political neutrality and promoting peace.
The next Summer Games is in Los Angeles in 2028, in the final months of President Donald Trump's second term. As the host nation head of state, he should help formally open the games at a July 14 ceremony likely drawing the biggest global audience for any broadcast in 2028.
A challenge until then is protecting what the IOC calls Olympic values, including gender equality and universal inclusion.
American relations this year with long-time allies like Canada, Ukraine, Denmark and Germany has cast doubt on how much warmth there will be for the US as a welcoming host in 2028.
The federal government's limited operational role for the Olympics includes security and border issues, including visas. A test of those plans will be the US co-hosting the 2026 World Cup in men's soccer with Canada and Mexico. Iran should be among the first teams to qualify next week.
The next IOC president will need nimble diplomatic skills, balanced with close ties to the Democratic-leaning local organizing committee, city of LA and state of California.
Global politics
The IOC has been closely aligned with the United Nations and the multilateral rules-based order shaping the world for 80 years. That is under pressure, from the US and elsewhere. When and how to reintegrate Russia in the Olympic family is pressing.
If these can seem uniquely challenging times, Coe noted his career as a track champion at Moscow in 1980 and LA in 1984 was an Olympic era of Cold War boycotts and exclusion for apartheid-era South Africa.
'They always have been (navigable) in the past,' Coe said of the pending diplomatic turmoil.
Equality for women
Gender equality has been a key policy of the Bach presidency: Equal quotas of men and women athletes, higher profile scheduling of women's events, men and women flag bearers for each team, more women members of the IOC.
Coventry is just the second female presidential candidate in the IOC's 131-year history and the first with a chance to win.
Gender eligibility in Olympic sports is now a hot-button issue, fueled further by President Trump's executive order on transgender athletes in the US and promises to pressure the IOC, and coming after the furor and disinformation around women's boxing in Paris last year.
The IOC had some responsibility for women's boxing arriving in Paris with what seemed outdated eligibility rules. Those could be reviewed before 2028.
Stricter rules on transgender athletes — barring from women's events anyone who went through male puberty — already were passed before Paris by swimming, cycling led by Lappartient and track and field led by Coe.
Some candidates in Thursday's election, including Coe, Samaranch and Eliasch have urged the IOC to take a clearer policy lead.
2036 Olympics host
The new president's eight-year mandate runs through 2033 and all games hosts in that time are already picked. Even 2034 is decided for the Salt Lake City Winter Games and 2038 looks destined for Switzerland.
The next big decision is the 2036 Summer Games with high-level lobbying under way by countries like India and Qatar. Doha would perhaps anchor a regional project with neighboring Gulf states.
There is no set timetable for a decision in the new, flexible and more opaque process designed by Bach which largely cuts members out of decisions, but limits the risk of vote-buying.
Climate change
The 2036 Olympics seem likely to move from the July-August period the Summer Games has occupied since the 2004 Athens Olympics.
It can be a catalyst for a wide review of the global sports calendar amid rising temperatures and extreme weather.
With fewer options to find Winter Games hosts, Eliasch proposes in his manifesto to rotate among a select group of permanent venues.
Engaging athletes
Olympic athletes could be winners in the election.
Coe's World Athletics broke an IOC taboo by paying $50,000 to track and field gold medalists in Paris, and promises payments for silver and bronze in LA.
Samaranch wants to give athletes control of video of their Olympic performances currently denied to protect broadcasters' exclusivity. Athletes have long objected to the strict drafting of Olympic Charter Rule 40 that limits their commercial options at the games.
Coventry is the most recent Olympic athlete, swimming at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games, and was their representative on the IOC executive board from 2018-21. Her manifesto offers no new benefits but supports the established Athlete 365 program helping prepare for their next careers.
Engaging voters
A theme for some candidates is that voters Thursday want more input and active involvement in the IOC's work. Bach's management style is widely seen as controlling.
Lappartient called for more debating instead of just listening; Coe said 'I don't micro-manage'; Prince Feisal suggested unanimous votes that are routine 'means there's something wrong.'
Samaranch offers members more say in selecting Olympic hosts. The members' age limit could rise five years to 75. Coe even would let members vote in just four years, not eight, whether to re-elect him.