It's time for a female, Asian, Latin American or African IOC president
JESUS MANSO GOMEZ
In 2025 the IOC must elect a new president. The 9 presidents so far have been men, all of them white, all of them from Europe or the US. Is it possible that the next president will be president and from a different continent? I consider it unlikely, but current times allow us to speculate on such a possibility. It is still too early to think about who will be the successor of the German Thomas Bach, who has been in office since 2013, but the truth is that among the vice presidents of the organization there is a vice president, the Aruban Nicole Hoevertsz.
The 58-year-old former synchronized swimmer has very clear ideas and in statements made this year to Dominican television CDN, she was very forceful when she said that Olympism needs more women, who are at the table where decisions are made.
As has been said, mentioning Hoevertsz is mere speculation at this point, but if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wants to take a leap into the future, why not mention this vice-president, who brings together your status as a woman being from a country located in the Caribbean? If everything runs smoothly on this small and convulsive planet, in three years we will have the answer.
And speaking of convulsions, we cannot ignore the moment that a good part of this planet is going through. Thus, the war in Ukraine could give way to an Olympic boycott of Russia, which was no longer able to compete with its name, flag and anthem in the last Games, Tokyo 2021, and the winter games in Beijing 2022, although in both cases was due to the sanction imposed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), after the State doping case that was uncovered by Dr. Richard McLaren's report. If the current armed conflict extends over time, how will the IOC act? The answer is ambiguous, but no other will do: time will tell.
On the other hand, the Olympic future may be very dark for some sports, including boxing, a fact that I neither share nor understand, but in the XNUMXst century it seems that this activity is not well seen by some of those who decide which should be part of the Games, although it is also true that the circumstances that the IBA has gone through, its highest international body, has influenced the decisions made by the IOC, which organized the qualifying tournament for Tokyo and will do the same with a view to Paris.
The IBA held its General Assembly on September 25 and it was decided not to call new presidential elections, with which the current top leader, the Russian Umar Kremlev, will continue to govern the destiny of the sport of 16 ropes, although now he will have at his side the Greek George A. Yerolimpus as secretary general.
However, in the next Olympic events, sports such as skateboarding, surfing, break dancing will be present. Will they remain on the calendar? Well, I guess depending on the interest they arouse, because in the end almost everything, and I repeat, almost everything is in line with the media impact they have.
Christian Klaue, Director of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs of the IOC, in an interview with Carlos Magariño and published in "Beers&Politics" emphasizes these new Olympic sports and points out that Olympism has to constantly adapt "and that is why we already had new sports for Tokyo and this process will continue with Paris (2024): breaking will come, and we will keep surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing, but we will also have disciplines such as 3×3 basketball. We are going to be more urban: we will have tests directly on the street and the massive participation of Paris, where the marathon can be run on the same route as the elite”.
“This is how the Olympics become your Olympics, you become a part of them. We are evolving and taking it to the next level because we have to keep in mind that the environment around us changes”, said Klaue, who added “We can clearly say that we have made the decision to change because we saw the need for change, and we are all in it” .
Let us now remember that the next Games will take place in Paris, from July 26 to August 11, 2024, and that it is already known that the following ones will fly to Los Angeles (USA), where they will be held from July 21 to August 6, 2028. The following?: It will be time to travel to Brisbane (Australia), the city that will host the Olympics from July 23 to August 8, 2032. Here a question arises: will Africa host an Olympic Games one day? The African continent has already hosted a great competition, the World Cup played in South Africa in 2010 and which ended successfully, especially for the Spanish team, who ultimately won the tournament.
As for the Winter Games, the next venue will be Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo (Italy) and will take place from February 6 to February 22, 2026. Will Giorgia Meloni's election on September 25 have any influence on that date? as head of the Italian government? I leave it there.
