Despite calls from UK and US anti-doping bodies for shamed nation to be banned from February’s games, IOC and Wada inaction could let them off the hook‘It wouldn’t surprise me if the fix is already in,” warned Travis Tygart, the venerable head of the US Anti-Doping Agency, when I asked him on Thursday whether Russia will compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics. It was not so much pessimism as prophecy. Twenty-four hours later Alexander Zhukov, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, confidently predicted at the 131st IOC summit in Lima: “It will be a Russian team with the Russian anthem and Russian flag” in Pyeongchang.Of course it will be. No one who follows the arcane politics of the International...
A key point often lost in the criticism of the IOC’s tolerance of tyranny is that by hosting the Olympics, democracies become more authoritarianOn Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee will rubberstamp the plan to hand Paris the 2024 Summer Games while Los Angeles will host in 2028. Given the lack of bids from democratic countries and the increasingly frequent torpedoing of bids by activists and referenda, Olympic boosters are surely thrilled to lock down Paris and LA, two cities in democracies with storied Olympic histories.After all, the IOC has received negative attention – and rightfully so – for bestowing the Games on authoritarian regimes. Olympic honchos even handed Beijing its second Games – it will host the Winter Olympics in...
As the scandal over international corruption and vote buying for the 2016 Olympic Games escalates the International Olympic Committee’s myopic response has again left more than a little to be desiredAs the Olympic flame was lit before beginning its journey to Rio last year the IOC president, Thomas Bach, intoned: “The Olympic flame means hope to us all.” Mr Bach will likely be feeling hopeful now, with the news that the Rio home of Brazil’s Olympic committee chief has been raided, along with various other addresses, as part of a major investigation into international corruption and vote buying for the 2016 Olympic Games.Bach will be hopeful that this is just a cosmic misunderstanding, hopeful that the £155,000 cash the police reportedly...
The young American sprinter, fresh off a record-tying seven golds at worlds, could be in position to become the face of swimming at the Tokyo OlympicsCaeleb Dressel knew the comparisons were inevitable. The 20-year-old University of Florida student had barely toweled off after capturing his seventh gold medal at last week’s world aquatics championships when he found himself cast as the heir to Michael Phelps as the face of swimming in the United States and, potentially, the world.Not only had the American sprinter become the first swimmer to win seven golds at a single worlds since Phelps in 2007, Dressel joined Phelps and Mark Spitz as the only swimmers to win seven titles at any long-course international championship. Related: Adam...
The IOC has the choice of Paris or Los Angeles to host the 2024 Olympic Games and both have relatively sensible proposalsWith the contest for the right to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games down to the last two contestants and nearing a final verdict, there may be several good reasons for giving Paris the right to stage the 2024 Olympics while postponing the return of the Games to Los Angeles until four years later. The most compelling of them must surely be that such a decision would put the Olympics out of the reach of Donald Trump’s sticky little fingers.The two-term limit of the recently inaugurated US president will end in 2025 – unless, that is, Trump decides...