Future Host Selection, Paying Athletes and More: The State of the Olympic Movement
The International Olympic Committee’s executive board held its second meeting of the month and this one was the biggie, as there was some actual news made during the Session and Kirsty Coventry was able to subtly celebrate the one-year anniversary of her election.
Coming off the Milan-Cortina Winter Games and with two years ahead of LA28 and a Games that promises to be a glitz-fest, there are still many outstanding issues that Coventry and the IOC have to sift through to ensure that the momentum from the past two years does not dissipate. Here’s some of the news that has been making waves within the Olympic movement along with my analysis.
Future Host Process Changes
THE NEWS: The IOC set a target of 2029 to pick a 2036 Olympics host in a currently stalled contest that has long been targeted by India and Qatar, with Germany also in the current running. It brings back a competitive vote wanted by members after L.A. for 2028 and Brisbane for 2032 were chosen without facing a rival candidate. Detailing the new timetable, IOC member Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said the contest should take shape in March next year. The IOC’s executive board will pick an official short list for “deeper evaluation of a number of interested parties with developed projects,” said Grabar-Kitarović, the former state president of Croatia. A timeline of late-2028 was set to begin a “targeted dialogue” phase with bidders, when their governments will be required to give legal and financial guarantees.
MY TAKE: Ladies and gentleman, start your engines. India was long presumed to be the favorite under the old process but its bid has stumbled under a number of performance-enhancing drug issues for its athletes, a stain that has been part of the country’s sports culture for years and shows no signs of abating. Germany may want to host the Games in 2036 and use it to position the ‘New Germany’ 100 years after the Hitler Games but there’s no way, in my view, the IOC takes them up on the potential offer. That leaves Qatar, which may be the safest bid from a governmental guarantees point of view, even more so than India. The question for Qatar remains the same any bid for a summer event comes in from the Middle East: Are you really going to expect to put the Summer Olympics in Qatar with the temperatures that exist in that country? Yes, you can say that about a lot of countries with rising global temperatures. But Qatar is an extreme case and you can’t just pull a FIFA and put your marquee event in the winter time if you’re the IOC. It’s called the Summer Olympics for a reason.
