The insidethegames.biz Magazine The world’s leading source of independent news and information about the Olympic Movement.
Spring Edition 2018
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Contents
Published: April 2018 by Dunsar Media Company Limited Editor: Duncan Mackay Magazine Editor: Daniel Palmer Managing Director: Sarah Bowron Design: Elliot Willis Willis Design Associates Pictures: Getty Images Staff headshots: Karen Kodish Print: www.csfprint.com Dunsar Media Company Limited C222 MK:TWO Business Centres 1-9 Barton Road Bletchley Milton Keynes MK2 3HU Great Britain +44 1908 821239 contact@insidethegames.biz www.insidethegames.biz No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature without prior written permission of the publisher.
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The man with many hats
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Introduction
Duncan Mackay Nick Butler
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Eastern promise David Owen
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A Tale of Two Cities Daniel Etchells
To Russia with love Thomas Giles
Linda shakes things up Liam Morgan
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The Shame Games Alan Hubbard
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Glasgow looks to the future Michael Pavitt
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Fight, for your right, to paaarrrttttyyyyy! Mike Rowbottom
Data is published in good faith and is the best information possessed by Dunsar Media Company Limited at the stated date of publication. The publisher cannot accept any liability for errors or omissions, however caused. Errors brought to the attention of the publisher and verified to the satisfaction of the publisher will be corrected in future editions, if any. Š and Database Right 2018 Dunsar Media Company Limited All rights reserved.
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HOSTING WINNERS
Sport Event Denmark is celebrating 10 Years! With numerous World Championships and European Championships in Denmark, we are proud to welcome the World of Sport. In the coming years Denmark will host many more world-class events. Starting in 2018 including: Sailing World Championships for all Olympic classes, ITU Multisport World Championships Festival and IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship.
See you in Denmark!
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DUNCAN MACKAY EDITOR, INSIDETHEGAMES
S
o, another Olympic cycle has been completed with the successful hosting of Pyeongchang 2018. A Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games that for so long failed to capture the imagination suddenly became the focus of world attention when North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un made the surprise announcement in a New Year’s Day message that his country would compete. That put into motion a series of events that led to the two Koreas marching under the unified flag at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games and the countries competing as one team in the women’s ice hockey. Only a few days after the Closing Ceremony it emerged that preliminary talks had taken place about United States President Donald Trump and Kim holding a summit to discuss the denuclearisation of North Korea. None of this would have happened without Pyeongchang 2018 and the International Olympic Committee - particularly its President Thomas Bach - who kept the lines of communication open with North Korea even during the height of the missile crisis. They deserve great credit for that and showed that the Olympic Movement continues to play an important role in society. Whether it brings long-lasting peace to the Korean Peninsula remains to be seen, but it was a rare moment for Bach to enjoy some positive media coverage after what was another tough
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year for the Olympic Movement thanks to the continued fall-out from the Russian doping scandal at Sochi 2014. The crisis is showing little signs of easing and is set to remain in the spotlight during the build-up to this year’s FIFA World Cup in Russia. The four-yearly football showpiece was supposed to be the final jewel in the crown of what was once marketed as “Russia’s decade of sport”. The doping scandal and the tense geopolitical situation between the West and Russian President Vladimir Putin has left that looking a bit tarnished but preparations have continued apace for the World Cup. Thomas Giles talks to Alexey Sorokin, head of Russia 2018, about what we can expect there this summer. “We see the World Cup as an opportunity to show the true Russia,” Sorokin tells Giles. “A nation that welcomes guests. A very modern nation. Unfortunately, these characteristics are not publicised, for some reason, but they are very prevalent characteristics of our country.” The Russian doping situation is among the topics insidethegames’ senior reporter Nick Butler discussed with Patrick Baumann, President of the Global Association of International Sports Federations. The Swiss wears many hats - head of GAISF, secretary general of the International Basketball Federation, President of Lausanne 2020 and chair of the Los Angeles 2028 IOC Coordination Commission are just some of them - and there is increasing speculation that one day he may wear the biggest hat of all. Baumann is understandably coy about whether he harbours ambitions of one day becoming President of the IOC, but Butler’s interview will give you more of an insight into this affable and likeable administrator. Pyeongchang 2018 marked the beginning of
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a new trend of major events moving East with Tokyo set to host the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics and Beijing the 2022 edition of the Winter Games. That may not be the end of it either, with Sapporo in Japan looking increasingly like a safe bet to host the 2026 Winter Olympic Games as the traditional European ski resorts continue to struggle to gather enough local public support to bid. insidethegames’ chief columnist David Owen examines this phenomenon, the reasons behind it and the positive effect it is having on the IOC’s sponsorship programme. I can still remember as a young cub reporter in 1988 the novelty of Seoul hosting the Summer Olympic Games. Etched on my memory is the shock of coming back home one evening after covering a non-league football match for the local newspaper I was working for at the time and switching on the television to hear that Ben Johnson had failed a drugs test after winning the 100 metres. Alan Hubbard covered his first Olympic Games at Tokyo in 1964 and was there in the South Korean capital. He recalls being woken up at 4.30am with the news of the Canadian’s positive. “Until the Russians embarked on their corporate scale drugging programme, Johnson was the biggest cheat in Olympics history,” Hubbard writes. The scandal overshadowed the Olympic Movement for years afterwards, just as Russia is doing now. How Bach must wish for more good news stories like North Korea at Pyeongchang 2018.
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The man with many hats Patrick Baumann is halfway through a four-year Presidency of GAISF and has already become one of the most trusted administrators in sport. Nick Butler finds out more about his priorities and ambitions.
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atrick Baumann is politeness personified when we meet in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel during a particularly freezing day at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. He insists on paying for coffees, to “warm us up”, before patiently debating a broad spectrum of sporting issues for over an hour. The 50-year-old is seen as one of the more capable administrators in sport and as one of the safest pairs of hands to turn to whenever a problem needs solving. We like to talk about sporting leaders wearing lots of different hats and Baumann’s wardrobe is brimming with bowlers, flat-caps, sombreros and a trilby. If you type his name into the insidethegames search engine, his name features in 11 stories connected to GAISF in the last 12 months. Olympic bidding business trails closely behind with 10. Baumann replaced Frankie Fredericks as chair of the International Olympic Committee Evaluation Commission for 2024 and 2028 last year and has now been appointed chair for the Los Angeles 2028 Coordination panel.
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The International Basketball Federation, where he remains the secretary general, and the World Anti-Doping Agency, where he is an Executive Committee member, tie for a distant third with five stories apiece. Lausanne 2020, where he is President of the Winter Youth Olympic Organising Committee, and the potential Swiss 2026 Winter Olympic bid from Sion were languishing further back. “Basketball is still my main priority,” Baumann reflects. “It’s always good to get back home to FIBA and get into my office and, when I do, one of my managers who has been there 24 years, says ‘oh finally, you are back…’ “It’s hard, it takes a bit longer than a normal eight hours. You go home, you have dinner, you see your family and put them to bed and then you go back to your computer and start typing and think ‘oh today I didn’t do Lausanne 2020 so let me go back to that’. You have to be a little more efficient in organising and sometimes people have to ask you twice.” Baumann himself brings up the potential for conflicts of interest and how many are sceptical about “independence” in sport. But he fights
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back when we broach the topic of anti-doping and the perennial “fox guarding the henhouse” argument. “We International Federations have been taking a lot of hits,” he says. “People say ‘we don’t care about this, we only care about our commercial success and sport and so forth and that we are permanently conflicted’. “We disagree. I cannot say that some in our family have not made mistakes, that has come out and has been fuelling this perception of a conflict of interest. But we’ve been fighting against doping for decades and trying to keep the sport clean. To avoid that perception, we are happy to move towards the Independent Testing Agency.” The ITA is, at present, more a theory than a practice. In Pyeongchang, it inherited personnel from the Doping Free Sport Unit of GAISF which already orchestrates testing programmes across 40 sports. Nobody, including the IOC, seemed quite sure who exactly was doing what and we were referred to different acronyms on different days. Its financial model also remains uncertain. Baumann is more comfortable talking about
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NICK BUTLER SENIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES
the philosophy behind it. “It should be somehow under WADA, as the regulatory arm, with the ITA the operational testing agency, and I think that would be absolutely fine,” he says. “I am happy to pay for it, but I want someone else to do it and make the rules. If I am driving too fast on the street, I get a fine or end up in prison. I have to respect rules by the authorities. “Whether you catch a big star or a more normal athlete, that’s life. It is better not to have this in our house to decide. We just have to bring the expertise.” Baumann also questioned the motives of National Anti-Doping Organisations who so love to criticise the way sport runs drug testing. “If you look at some of the scandals that have shaken the world, they don’t necessarily just have an IF at the spear of that particular
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scandal,” he argues. “In some cases, there is a perceived, if not a proven, conflict of interest when a National Anti-Doping Agency takes decisions for its own athletes. “NADOs go out and are trying to catch other organisations to do their tests in order to have more tests and more volume, so there is also a business perspective. “I think that is something that, if you really want to get rid of those conflicts of interests, then the ITA - in whatever form it evolves - should also be a home for the NADOs, so nobody can effectively claim ‘we are the best’. From an IF perspective, we feel that NADOs also have some things to learn.” This would be a huge undertaking and, given how a majority of the ITA Board are figures directly within the Olympic Movement, one which would raise eyebrows regarding independence. Baumann continued by expressing confidence in the ability of the Court of Arbitration for Sport to eventually assume responsibility for sanctioning of all doping cases. CAS also now has the exclusive power to resolve all disputes within GAISF. He cautiously defends the Lausanne-based body when asked about the criticism it received in January when overruling the majority of IOC suspensions issued against Russian athletes accused of doping at Sochi 2014. “CAS has served us very well, but it doesn’t mean that from time to time, you get a decision that you may not have expected,” he said. “It
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Main: Patrick Baumann has many different sporting responsibilities. Photo: Getty Images Top Left: Patrick Baumann speaks as part of the IOC’s Coordination Commission visit to Los Angeles. Photo: Getty Images Right: Patrick Baumann serving as President of GAISF. Bottom: Lausanne will host the 2020 Youth Winter Olympic Games under Patrick Baumann’s stewardship. Photo: Getty Images
does require you to rethink whether you did something wrong, or didn’t have enough proof, or didn’t argue your case correctly, or whether there is a problem in the system and then it is up to CAS to try and improve it.” Should IOC President Thomas Bach not have given a similarly measured response, I venture, rather than giving the impression of only supporting CAS when it delivers verdicts he wants? “He was probably frustrated and that is human,” Baumann smiles in response. “He and the whole administration of the IOC have been investing huge time and resources in trying to prove that there has been a systematic approach towards doping [in Russia]. It has cost him a lot of time and effort.” GAISF under Baumann is already assuming a very different shape from how SportAccord was under Marius Vizer, who was effectively forced out of office in 2015 after daring to criticise the IOC and shape it as a potential rival. Baumann was elected less than a year later, and the organisation now seems fully aligned and back in the “family”. The name change is emblematic of a shift back to a body designed to provide services rather than play politics. A new two-year rotating system has been introduced to curb Presidential power and Baumann is already halfway through a term which must end in 2020.
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NICK BUTLER SENIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES
Patrick Baumann continues to play a key role in the sport of basketball. Photo: Getty Images
This does not mean they cannot argue with the IOC when necessary, he insists, although they will do so internally rather than in public. “My son, my daughter, they disagree with me all the time, but they are still in the house,” Baumann quips. GAISF represents 109 sporting bodies all in all. So what services do they get for their membership? The DFSU, for many, was the most substantial but should soon be swallowed up totally by the ITA. Organising multi-sport Games is another objective. A contract has been signed with Chinese Taipei to hold a revived World Combat Games in the second half of 2019. A World Mind Games should be resurrected while a potential World Urban Games and some involvement in the Association of National Olympic Committees’ World Beach Games are other options. It is hoped that these events will generate revenue and potentially encourage sponsors to come on board. A request by Winter IFs to set-up an external “independent” Ethics Commission to look at cases on their behalf is also being considered along with a more central role in monitoring harassment and abuse in sport. Baumann also talks at length about ways to www.facebook.com/insidethegames
help IFs evolve and innovate. This involves a delicate balancing act between embracing new sports and stopping numbers swelling too much. He encourages smaller sports to consider aligning themselves with larger ones as it could prove mutually beneficial. Controversially, he also floats the idea of the International Canoe Federation and the International Surfing Association eventually joining forces rather than argue over who has the right to the discipline of stand-up paddle. The amalgamation of parkour into gymnastics is another example. “With observer status, we tried to open the door but also tried to push new ones to move towards either being just good federations, if smaller, or finding the right partner to go with,” Baumann adds. “Some are trying to do this just to jump over the steps. If an Olympic Federation takes them on, they might be faster onto the Olympic programme. That’s a smart and intelligent business calculation, but sometimes it takes a little bit more than just ‘jumping over everything else and, boom!’ “It’s an interesting moment right now: working out what is trendy and will remain trendy and whether something is promoterdriven or has a national structure…” Baumann nearly snaps when I bring up a comment uttered by Richard Pound at the IOC @insidethegames
Session about sporting bodies being better at talking than walking. “We walk the walk every day, we are not just talking.” I attempt appeasement by suggesting that GAISF can be a forum to walk the talk. “We can be a multiplier and give that service to the sports family,” he concurs. I am still not completely sure about Baumann’s motivation and ambition. He is more down to earth and has less of an ego than many sporting leaders, but it is equally possible that he is just better at masking it. Would he ever consider a tilt for the IOC President when Bach steps down in 2021 or, more likely, 2025? After a short pause, he answers: “I am happy to do what I do, and I want to do it well. I have enough now on my desk and cannot think of other things. We have a very capable President who has great Executive Board members. That is a question for the next decade. Today I am really happy with what I have, it is a real honour to work for the IOC Coordination Commission and I want to do this well. That is more than enough.” Like GAISF, he seems more content to provide services rather than court real power. But he is certainly one to keep an eye on in case he one day does begin to move out of the shadows.
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Eastern promise Beijing 2022 will be the third consecutive Olympic Games in Asia. David Owen explores what the shift to the east means for the Movement.
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here was a time in the 1990s when, come what may, Ireland seemed to win the Eurovision Song Contest year after year. It became part of the established pattern of international life - like Sydney getting the New Year’s celebrations off to a good start, or England losing penalty shoot-outs. It is a bit like that with Asia and the Winter Olympics at the moment. One of my favourite vignettes from February’s 132nd International Olympic Committee Session in South Korea came when Prince Tunku Imran, an IOC member from another Asian country, Malaysia, took the
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Asia will be the focus for three successive editions of the Olympic Games. Photo: Getty Images
microphone and suggested that the Japanese city of Sapporo be advised to sit out the 2026 Winter Olympic hosting race. “We have had Pyeongchang this year, Beijing in 2022 - shouldn’t we be kind to Sapporo and say, ‘Don’t waste your time in bidding for 2026. Why don’t you go for 2030?’” Prince Tunku said. “Because to be fair, to be objective…it is time perhaps for a central zone or a western zone.” It may be that, in the end, the 1972 Winter Games host heeds this advice and adopts precisely this strategy. As I write, however, 2026 remains an option. Certainly in the conference chamber, IOC vice-president Juan Antonio Samaranch appeared not at all inclined to adopt his Malaysian colleague’s suggestion. “The new key word here is ‘flexibility,’” he replied. “We are going to be flexible to make sure that we can organise the best possible Games in the best possible place for the best athletes in the world.”
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One was tempted to observe that the real key word was still “referendum”, but let that pass - for now. Whether or not Sapporo does make it a hat-trick of Asian Winter Games hosts in 2026, we are definitely set to experience an unprecedented three consecutive Olympics on this vast, diverse and dynamic continent between 2018 and 2022, with Pyeongchang and Beijing 2022 sandwiching the second Summer Games to be staged in the great Japanese metropolis of Tokyo. How has this come about? And what might the sequence mean for the still rather Eurocentric network of sporting bodies that is the Olympic Movement? It would be nice to say that the focus on Asia was the consequence of a decisive strategic move by Lausanne to mount a push in this fast-growing and increasingly influential part of the world, akin to the way, say, Formula One
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DAVID OWEN CHIEF COLUMNIST, INSIDETHEGAMES made a point of adding more Asian races to its calendar. But having lived successively through each of the contests whose outcomes have produced this situation, that is not at all what it felt like. Pyeongchang’s easy victory, against two European rivals Munich and Annecy, at the 2011 IOC Session in Durban, was the result of three things: persistence - it was the little-known South Korean location’s third consecutive bid; good advice, the humility to listen to it and the ability to put it into action; and timing - after the previous four Games had gone either to Europe or the Americas, there was a sense it was once again Asia’s turn. With Tokyo in Buenos Aires two years later, the decisive dynamic was subtler and so harder to encapsulate. There was an element of muggin’s turn: the previous two Summer Games had gone to Europe – London - and the Americas – Rio. Like Pyeongchang, Tokyo had tried before, but not as often as rival Madrid, and palpably improved its pitch as a consequence. The Spanish capital, in retrospect, was too far ahead of its time, assembling a bid infused with the sort of priorities that have since coalesced into Agenda 2020 before most IOC members were prepared to embrace new realities. Ultimately though, I think it was
Almaty nearly shocked Beijing in the 2022 Olympic race. Photo: Getty Images
more than anything a safety-first reflex that pushed Tokyo, again quite comfortably, over the edge. By 2013, with the global economy slow to bounce back from the financial crisis, the penny was starting to drop that Rio was likely to prove more of a challenge than was expected in the still upbeat days of 2009 when the city was entrusted with the Summer Games. This, I believe, told against an impressive but ambitious and adventurous bid by Istanbul, even though the Turks had the backing of many influential supporters. Next came Beijing, which
Celebrations as Tokyo is announced as 2020 host. Photo: Getty Images
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prevailed simply by standing there while, one by one, its rivals, mainly from Europe, fell by the wayside. There did remain one - Almaty, which was widely regarded as a plucky Kazakhstan minnow with little or no prospect of success until the very last day of the contest. Then, IOC members gathered in Kuala Lumpur and channelling the Agenda 2020 spirit more literally than the organisation’s leadership had perhaps anticipated, came remarkably close to electing the underdog. This would have been a far bigger surprise than Sochi winning in 2007, or London edging Paris in 2005, or even Atlanta’s triumph in 1990. Since then, of course, we have moved to a more micromanaged, technocrat-led host selection process and the awarding of the next two Summer Olympics after Tokyo ultimately without any city-versus-city, winner-takes-all election at all. If, like me, you believe that the surprise of the Beijing-againstAlmaty vote may have been a contributory factor - along with the destructive power of social media
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and the pressing need for cost control - to the reform of host selection, then you could argue that this hat-trick of Asian Games hosts has already had a major, if indirect, impact on the way the IOC, the most powerful club in sport, takes some of its biggest decisions. I would also think the choice of China for 2022 makes the return of National Hockey League players to the Winter Games after their absence from Pyeongchang pretty likely, simply because the vastness of the market makes it such a lure for sport business. The South Korea-Japan-China three-card trick also assures the famous five-ring logo of sustained commercial exposure to one of the most vibrant regional economies on earth. We are seeing something of the power of this marriage in the astonishing numbers being racked up by the Tokyo 2020 domestic sponsorship programme. It would be little surprise if Beijing 2022 achieved something similar. East Asia still seems relatively free from the negative view of the Olympics that has become quite prevalent in the West. Perhaps also mindful
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of an opportunity to win favour with influential politicians and civil servants, Japanese companies have rushed to buy up the right to link their brand-names with one of the world’s bestknown logos. The money raised by this stays very largely in Japan. While it should be a big help in funding a spectacular Games, therefore, it has relatively little direct impact on the broader Olympic Movement. But this run of consecutive Asian Games has coincided too with a flurry of interest from Asian companies in the IOC’s TOP worldwide sponsorship programme, which does produce income for distribution around the Movement at large. Since Tokyo made it two East Asian Olympics in a row, agreements have been announced with Bridgestone, Toyota and Alibaba. These are all true multinationals with global, rather than regional, objectives. I understand that with at least one of them – Alibaba – the decision to come on board when they did had nothing to do with where individual Games were going to be located. I cannot help wondering, though, whether the knowledge that the 2020 Summer Games were coming to Tokyo may have been part of the motivation for the two Japanese companies to sign up when
The Tokyo 2020 mascots help advertise the next edition of the Summer Games. Photo: Getty Images
they did. This extended opportunity for regional exposure applies too to the sports themselves, particularly winter sports, which will be under the spotlight in two of the three Games in question. The skiing, snowboarding and skating industries now have a golden opportunity for rapid expansion in the biggest country on earth in population terms. While there is scope for scepticism as to whether growth achieved in the next four years will prove sustainable post-2022 once the five-ring circus has moved on, it seems overly pessimistic to assume it will all quickly www.facebook.com/insidethegames
The Olympic flag is passed between Pyeongchang and Beijing. Photo: Getty Images
melt away. If winter sports end up by consolidating even a modest additional toe-hold in China as the century proceeds, the scale of the country is such that the boost it affords could be considerable. Says Michael Payne, the former IOC marketing director: “There is no question that having the Games in [Pyeongchang and Beijing] is a major catalyst in the development of winter sport.” He continues: “The Asian population is discovering leisure. These are cold regions.” Barry Maister, an IOC member from New Zealand, makes the additional point that successfully securing and putting on the Olympics is likely to imbue Asian countries with the confidence to bid more widely for events such as winter World Cups. Olympic hosts in the region may, he suggests, also be able to work together to provide coordinated elite competitions and training options for elite athletes. “The world certainly now knows Asia can ‘do winter sports,’” Maister adds. Potential for achieving meaningful expansion of winter sports activity in other populous countries in Asian time-zones seems limited, however. Many of them have tropical climates and winter sports role models of west or south Asian nationality are few and far between. In the whole history of the Winter Olympics, the two Koreas, China and Japan, along with the central Asian duo Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, are the only Asian countries that have ever won medals. @insidethegames
Pyeongchang saw no increase in this total. The sequence of successive Asian Games poses a challenge for European- and Americanbased broadcasters, which are among the Movement’s biggest paymasters. It will be interesting to see whether new technologies – in particular those which have enabled people increasingly to watch live action while on the move – can help to keep audiences high in an era when the most attractive events may well not coincide with prime time in those markets. By the same token, you would expect this succession of Asian events to enable the IOC to lift the value of its media rights in the Asia region. A run of three consecutive Asian Games also gives the Olympic Channel, the new digital platform, a great opportunity to establish a really solid and extensive Asian audience base. This is perhaps reflected in the identity of the channel’s first two “founding partners” – Bridgestone and Toyota.
Sapporo has been tipped to host the 2026 Winter Olympics. Photo: Getty Images
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Beijing will become the first city to host the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics. Photo: Getty Images
What about the impact on the IOC itself? Does this extended Asian sojourn for the Olympic Games make it any more likely that the IOC might finally elect an Asian President, after 124 years (and counting)? When the present incumbent, Germany’s Thomas Bach, was elected in 2013, there were two Asians – Ching-kuo Wu of Taiwan and Singapore’s Ser Miang Ng – among the six candidates. However, they finished joint last in the first round of voting. Had you conducted a straw poll in the wake of that contest, I suspect that an Asian, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti who is President of the Association of National Olympic Committees, would have emerged as favourite eventually to succeed Bach. That may still happen, but it is fair to say that the prospect appears to have receded. Other potential Asian candidates look thin on the ground. China’s Yu Zaiqing, one of the IOC vice-presidents, is widely respected. But he will be 74 and, under current rules, probably no longer a member in 2025, Bach’s likeliest departure date. The chance of Ng, two years Yu’s senior, has also probably gone, though he has the right to remain in the club until he is 80. Jordan’s Prince Feisal is young enough and might have a chance. There is still time for other names to emerge, but that looks about the full extent of the list at the moment. A more realistic priority in terms of using this trio of Asian Games to boost the continent’s influence within the IOC should perhaps be to raise the number of Asian IOC members. At present, only 19 out of the 100 members are from Asia – and www.facebook.com/insidethegames
three of those – Prince Tunku, Thailand’s Nat Indrapana and Chang Ung of North Korea – are due to retire at the end of this year. By 2022, after this run of Asia-based Olympic Games, there should certainly be more individuals from the region with the skill-set to make a worthwhile, practical contribution to the IOC. While the present leadership appears determined at times to circumscribe the decision-making powers of the rank-and-file, you would think that hands-on, coal-face experience of the trials and tribulations of organising a recent Games would be among the more valued attributes that a potential IOC member could possess.
The previously little-known South Korean county of Pyeongchang welcomed the world this year. Photo: Getty Images
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A Tale
of
The Asian Games will be shared between two Indonesian cities this year – Jakarta and Palembang. Daniel Etchells finds out how preparations are going.
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round three-and-a-half years have passed since Jakarta was awarded the 2018 Asian Games during the Olympic Council of Asia General Assembly in Incheon. Under normal circumstances, the Indonesian capital would have been just halfway through its preparations for the continental multi-sport event, but having stepped in as a late replacement for Vietnamese capital Hanoi, the Opening Ceremony of the Games is less than six months away. Hanoi was originally selected as host in November 2012, only to withdraw in April 2014 due to economic pressures, for a Games that were initially set to be held in 2019 to avoid a clash with the 2018 Winter Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup.
A volleyball test event in full flow. Photo: Getty Images
Indonesia subsequently emerged as the only viable replacement, although with a bid focusing events on Jakarta rather than Surabaya, which finished second behind Hanoi in the initial race. The Games were moved back to 2018 to avoid a clash with Indonesian Presidential
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elections taking place the following year. Just a day after Jakarta was officially awarded the 2018 Asian Games, the then President of the Indonesian Olympic Committee, Rita Subowo, said she was confident the city would be ready to host a successful edition, despite having just four years to prepare. Subowo admitted, however, that Indonesia would have to work hard to fulfil all the requirements. It was not until September 2015 that it was confirmed that Jakarta would officially co-host the 2018 Asian Games with Palembang. This was despite it always having been planned for some events to be held in the capital of Indonesia’s South Sumatra province. The agreement was made on the condition that both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and the main Athletes’ Village, would remain in Jakarta, while there would be “convenient transportation links” between the two. OCA President Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al-Sabah described the decision as “in compliance with the Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms of International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach”. He also claimed it highlighted the solidarity of the organisation of the Games following the path set by the 2011 Asian Winter Games co-hosted by the Kazakh cities of Astana and Almaty. But it was clear there were still many hurdles to overcome, with some concerned about the practical difficulties of attending a Games on two different islands, as well as other financial matters. Just three months after Palembang was confirmed as an official co-host of the Games, then Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama claimed all events should be held in Palembang for economic reasons.
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Kaka the rhino is one of three mascots for the Games. Photo: Getty Images
Purnama expressed his belief that Palembang would benefit more from hosting the Games than Jakarta. Although a somewhat unusual move for a major politician from the city to publicly declare that he would prefer that the Games were hosted elsewhere, it was one that never materialised. Danny Buldansyah, the planning director of the Indonesian Asian Games Organising Committee, claims the location of the Games has provided one of the three biggest challenges along with the reduced time frame and limited budget. “The distance between the cities is about 1,000 kilometres, and in Jakarta itself the sports venues are spread out over three location clusters,” he said. “However, we are able to overcome any logistical issues with 20 return flights connecting both cities every day.
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The Gelora Bung Karno Stadium is the showpiece Jakarta venue. Photo: Getty Images
“The transportation infrastructure has been integrated with main roads to facilitate the transfer of visitors, and can be accessed directly from the airport. “This is to provide easy access and convenience during the Asian Games.” Now, with just under half a year until the start of the 2018 Asian Games, the INASGOC is much better positioned to respond to those who doubt that Jakarta-Palembang 2018 will be a success. A huge boost came in January, when OCA Coordination Committee chairman Tsunekazu Takeda claimed it is “very satisfied” with preparations in both Jakarta and Palembang following the conclusion of an eighth inspection visit. Takeda, the President of the Japanese Olympic Committee and an IOC member, said organisers were in “operational and implementation mode” and the planning phase was over. Jakarta Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno was among the officials to attend the two-day visit and stressed the Government would implement an efficient travel management plan for the Games. www.facebook.com/insidethegames
During the Committee’s inspection, Indonesian President Joko Widodo inaugurated the main venue for the Games. The Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, which will host athletics and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, was opened after IDR779.9 billion of improvement work was completed. Work done to the stadium, built for when Jakarta hosted the 1962 Asian Games, includes upgrades to the lighting and sound systems while benches have been replaced by individual seats. The capacity, meanwhile, has dropped by 10,000 to 80,000. The venue clusters for the 2018 Asian Games are located in and around the GBK Sports Complex as well as in Jakarta’s suburbs and in Palembang.
An archer previews facilities in Jakarta. Photo: Getty Images
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It is claimed state-of-the-art technology and international standards have been applied in the development and renovation of the venues for each sports event. The renovation process is also said to have carefully adhered to the restoration protocol for heritage buildings where relevant. “We are proud and pleased to use some of the heritage venues of the 1962 Games which are located at GBK Stadium,” Buldansyah said. “Just as those Games were a chance for Indonesia to present the newly-built GBK Stadium, these 18th Asian Games is an opportunity to showcase new and renovated facilities outside the stadium complex. “These include the Cycling Velodrome and Equestrian Centre, which have been renovated with the most advanced technology. “In Palembang, we have built the new sports complex Jakabaring Sport City, the site of all the competitions in the city.” Among the other positive developments for organisers in recent times has been the finalisation of preparations for the Torch Relay. It was announced in January that India’s capital New Delhi will host the flame lighting ceremony at the Major Dhyan Chand
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National Stadium, named after the three-time Olympic gold medal-winning Indian hockey player, on July 15. The venue was the main stadium for the first Asian Games held in New Delhi in 1951 and is where the permanent flame of the continental multi-sport event is located. The ceremony will be followed by a cultural programme and a 3km Torch Relay, taking in the historical sights of New Delhi such as the India Gate war memorial and the Rashtrapati Bhavan Lawns. The flame will then be transported to Yogyakarta, on the island of Java, by a dedicated Indonesian Air Force Boeing 737 for a onemonth Relay around 29 cities. The 10,000km Relay will involve 1,000 Torchbearers and the route will include the tourist island of Bali as well as Palembang. Also announced in January was the opening of the Main Operation Centre for the 2018 Asian Games. The MOC is set up with 24 screens of live feeds for traffic, airport arrivals and departures, closed circuit television at venues and at the new Athletes’ Village in Kemayoran in the northern part of Central Jakarta, and other key locations of Asian Games operations and management. Its opening came prior to a major test event in February, when Jakarta hosted an eight-sport invitational tournament. More than 800 athletes from 18 National Olympic Committees took part in the tournament, which featured archery, athletics, basketball, boxing, Indonesian martial art pencak silat, taekwondo, volleyball and weightlifting. Although the INASGOC conducted 39 test events from July to December 2017, the tournament allowed it to integrate all the IT and broadcasting operations, traffic flow and accreditation, as well as management of staff and volunteers. “Its purpose was to evaluate our preparations to determine what is being done well and what needs improvement,” Buldansyah said. “We learned that the areas needing improvements include the travel times from the Athletes’ Villages to Games venues and internet connection but most are minor issues and we have already devised solutions. “The most important result of this warm-up event was to increase our excitement and confidence to successfully organise the Games.” A particularly big issue for the INASGOC has been the establishment of the sports programme, with 40 sports and 462 events only given final approval in September 2017 at an OCA Executive Board meeting in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashgabat. The 462 total is the second biggest in the history of the Asian Games - after the 476 which featured on the Guangzhou 2010 programme - and represents a huge increase on the 321 scheduled for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. It is thought that the increase in events since the April 2017 total of 431 took place after International Federations raised concerns that events on the Olympic programme were missing out. “Ideally, we would have liked to finalise the sports programme as soon as possible to give us more time and leeway to prepare,” Buldansyah said. www.facebook.com/insidethegames
Organisers are hoping for success across two Indonesian cities. Photo: Getty Images
“We are thankful the final sports programme has been approved by the Olympic Council of Asia. “But of course, we understand the challenges faced by the International Federations in their preparations due to the timing of the finalisation.” Another problem for the INASGOC surrounded the Games’ official logo and mascots. Derawan, a bird of paradise dressed in uniform used in pencak silat, was originally chosen as the mascot following a competition process conducted by Indonesia’s Youth and Sports Ministry. The arts community, however, claimed it looked old-fashioned, while many Indonesians claimed it resembled a chicken rather than an exotic bird. Indonesia’s Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi subsequently ordered the KOI and Indonesia’s Creative Economy Board to return to the drawing board to come up with a new idea for the mascot and the logo, which was the silhouette of a bird of paradise. Both final designs were selected in July 2016 following a competition held by Bekraf. A trio of animals - bird of paradise “Bhin Bhin”, one-horned rhinoceros “Kaka” and Bawean deer “Atung” - were chosen as the mascots. The logo, meanwhile, is themed “Energy of Asia” and depicts an aerial view of the GBK Stadium upon which all eyes will be focused come the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Asian Games on August 18. The INASGOC now has a crucial few months ahead as it aims to ensure that all is ready to go by that point. “The main challenge [between now and the start of the Games] is still the limited timeframe, but we have been able to manage all the issues well,” Buldansyah said. “Most of the infrastructure has been completed on time. “Another challenge is ensuring continuous and thorough coordination internally and also with external parties. “We are looking forward to strengthening Indonesia’s image as a great nation that is coming into its own by hosting this momentous event as well as improving the national economy on many fronts, such as investment, tourism and creation of new job opportunities.”
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To Russia with love Russia is a country facing an image crisis but the FIFA World Cup this year is a chance to change all that. Thomas Giles speaks to Organising Committee head Alexey Sorokin as the tournament looms near.
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ver since the 2018 FIFA World Cup was awarded to Russia back in December 2010 there has been non-stop controversy. However, soon all of this controversy in the build-up will be forgotten as some of the world’s finest footballers touch down in the country for the start of the tournament. This summer’s extravaganza presents the perfect opportunity for Russia, embroiled in a doping crisis, to showcase itself positively to the world. Of course, this is never easy and as is the case with most host cities and nations, World Cup preparations were chaotic early on as the realities of hosting one of the world’s largest sporting events hit home. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than at the Krestovsky Stadium in Saint Petersburg, which will host one of the two semi-finals this summer. The responsibility for building the stadium has changed hands several times with corruption allegations miring the process, causing the progress to stall dramatically. This led to a half-baked stadium being used at last year’s Confederations Cup, which was just about viable. Fortunately, things seem to have moved on dramatically as we enter the final countdown and Organising Committee head Alexey Sorokin says the stadiums are ready to go.
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“We have six stadiums fully operational and another six in the final stages,” he told insidethegames. “They will be receiving all of the necessary recommendations for commissioning very soon whilst the host cities are also finalising their preparations.” When talking about major sporting events, legacy is undoubtedly the most important aspect. How, it is asked, can hosting a sporting event impact society in a positive way? This comes from improving infrastructure, which will benefit a country in the long run - something that Sorokin believes will be the case in Russia. “There is a legacy plan in place,” he said. “All the stadiums are going to be used by local clubs. Additionally, we have built 104 pitches in the European part of Russia, which will be used extensively at both professional and youth levels of football. “There is nothing that has been built that is needed only for the World Cup. Everything constructed is part of the natural development of our cities. All the infrastructure will be in full use and for the benefit of the people.” This is a hugely important point as every sport event organiser hopes that they will avoid being landed with “white elephant” stadiums and facilities that do their job for a couple of weeks before being left to
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disintegrate once the party stops. This has been a huge problem at the last two FIFA World Cups with stadiums from South Africa 2010 struggling to stay open. The Arena da Amazônia in Manaus also sits empty in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest after Brazil’s 2014 World Cup and Rio de Janiero’s 2016 Olympics. So, what will happen after Russia 2018? There are certainly some innovative ideas. Just look at the Central Stadium in Ekaterinburg, the furthest east of the 11 host cities, where they have built temporary stands for the World Cup in order to make the stadium more manageable and viable once it welcomes back domestic football the following season. The stadiums in the bright lights of Moscow and Saint Petersburg should also thrive as those cities have large football communities, as does little-known Samara - widely viewed as the biggest hotbed of Russian football. However, despite Sorokin’s confidence in the stadium legacy plans, I worry about stadiums in places like Nizhny Novogorod, Saransk and Kaliningrad. Neither of these three cities have a topflight club, nor do they have a particularly strong football history. Are they likely to sell out 40,000 seater stadiums? Probably not. Will we see these stadiums struggle after the World Cup party leaves? Probably. Their
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future will be the most difficult to decide. Sport in its purest form is not about gold medals and expensive competitions, it is about keeping fit and helping people stay healthy. Major sporting events have the potential to inspire the next generation to get out and take up sport, allowing them to stay healthy. Sorokin, who is in his role after Vitaly Mutko stepped down following his lifetime banning from the Olympic Games, supposedly to focus on “Government work”, believes that that process has already started for Russia 2018. “We have in excess of four million people playing professional or semi-professional football,” he said. “The World Cup, as it usually does, will certainly spark more interest in football and will take it to another level we saw that in Germany and in South Africa. Statistics show that even our successful bid caused an influx of young children to subscribe to football schools.” However, much of this inspiration will come down to the performance of the Russian national team at the tournament and, unfortunately, Russian football has never been at a lower point. The team’s humiliation at Euro 2016, when they were knocked out at the group stage, caused panic at the top with fears that the team would embarrass themselves in what should be their proudest moment – a home World Cup. This poor display in France two years ago also created a huge lack of empathy between the team and the fans with images of star players Aleksandr Kokorin, who is set to be this summer’s poster boy, and Pavel Mamaev drinking expensive champagne in a fancy Monaco hotel just a couple of weeks after the tournament doing little to help matters. Ever since Russia’s Euro elimination, those at the top of Russian football have tried everything to improve the team. This has ranged from reducing the number of foreign players in the domestic league to naturalising good foreign players so that they can play for the national team - Russia can certainly be full of contradictions at times. Unsurprisingly, none of these solutions have worked. As we have seen with the dominant German side of the last few years, fixing an international football team is a long-term process which starts at the grassroots. The Russian attempt to simply put a plaster on a gaping wound for the last two years has not worked. Unfortunately, this poor planning means, barring a miracle, Russia will almost certainly @insidethegames
Main: The footballing eyes of the world will be on Russia this year. Photo: Getty Images Top left: Russia have struggled on the field of play. Photo: Getty Images Top right: Hooliganism is a potential problem. Photo: Getty Images Bottom left: The tournament draw was held in Moscow. Photo: Getty Images Below: Vitaly Mutko has never been far from the headlines. Photo: Getty Images
crash out in the early rounds of its own tournament this summer. Will such a poor performance inspire the next generation to pick up a football instead of the traditional ice hockey stick and puck? I doubt it. When people speak about a country showing off its good side, as Russia hopes to do this summer, they talk about the hospitality of the people and how they welcome strangers from foreign lands into their homes. Unfortunately, when we speak about Russian football, the term “hooliganism” is never far away.
Whilst the situation is not as bad as is often portrayed, it is impossible to deny that Russian football has a problem with hooliganism. Everybody saw the sickening scenes in Marseille two years ago when clashes between England and Russian football fans left many fearing for their lives. These were not unfamiliar scenes, however, as Russian football has been dogged by hooliganism for years. Perhaps this anecdote can help illustrate the point. I was once invited on a tour of a top flight football club
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Russia warmed up for the World Cup by hosting the Confederations Cup. Photo: Getty Images
and part of that included a visit to the “official ultras office”, located in the bowels of the stadium. Football fans will be quick to tell me about the difference between ultras, who are seen as passionate fans who try to have a positive impact from the stands, and hooligans, who are simply looking to fight and have no real love for football. While this may be true, I found it astonishing that a club would think it was a good idea to give the ultras their own private office in the stadium, such is the grey area between ultras and hooliganism. Fortunately, after years of hooliganism being swept under the carpet, attitudes are changing and the Russian authorities are learning how to deal with the situation. “We have a very safe environment here and there has not been a single incident during
Alexey Sorokin has headed up the Organising Committee. Photo: Getty Images
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recent international competitions organised in Russia,” Sorokin says. “We can assure everyone that competent authorities have the appropriate security measures in place. We certainly do not see it as something to be scared of.” One of those security measures is the introduction of the “Fan ID” for this year’s World Cup, which I hope is here to stay. The Fan ID means that football supporters travelling to the World Cup can be assured that those with a history of football violence will be unable to attend games. So, to fans who are afraid of attending the World Cup, I urge you to be open-minded and realise that these idiots are a small minority and, in fact, as is the case in every country, the majority of Russians are incredibly friendly and some of the warmest people you will ever meet – something Sorokin was keen to point out. “We see the World Cup as an opportunity to show the true Russia,” he said. “A hospitable nation. “A nation that welcomes guests, A very modern nation. Unfortunately, these characteristics are not publicised for some reason, but they are very prevalent characteristics of our country.” February’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang @insidethegames
were seen as an opportunity to build a bridge between North and South Korea, despite the two nations still technically being at war. We are now seeing the exact same opportunity presenting itself at this summer’s World Cup. After years of being misunderstood and having to deal with people’s ignorant attitudes, as Sorokin rightly says, this is a chance for Russia to show its true self to the entire world.
A clock counts down towards the tournament. Photo: Getty Images
Hopefully, after the World Cup, people’s perceptions of Russia will change and they will no longer think of it as a problem country. Instead, they will be introduced to a nation which has so much to offer and has been ignored for far too long. In terms of legacy, this is arguably the most important aspect.
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Linda things up The battle against doping in sport needs strong voices and Norway’s Linda Helleland is becoming a force to be reckoned with. Liam Morgan reports.
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orld Anti-Doping Agency vice-president Linda Helleland is not afraid to ruffle a few feathers. The Norwegian Minister for Children and Equality is of a rare breed; a high-ranking sports official who dares put their head above the parapet and speak out on the issues that matter. Helleland did exactly that on numerous occasions last year. When she felt something
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was wrong or needed to be addressed, she said so. Into 2018 and that trend has already continued. Just over a week before the Winter Olympic Games began in Pyeongchang and with a backdrop of confusion over the Russia situation, Helleland criticised the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision to uphold the appeals of 28 Russian athletes against their doping bans and called for an “independent” review into the entire fiasco. While she did not map out the precise shape such an investigation might take, her general stance was supported by the likes of International Olympic Committee doyen Richard Pound and his compatriot Beckie Scott, the chairperson of WADA’s Athlete Committee. “I think the last two years have shown us that the anti-doping system is not working and there is a loss of credibility day by day,”
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said Helleland. “Never has a strong and independent WADA been more important. The Governments and IOC have to give us a clear mandate to clean up sport. To make this possible we need a full review. “We have to learn from our mistakes. Only then can we make a strategy for the future that is sustainable and efficient. “There needs to be a critical review and thorough assessment of all stakeholders in the anti-doping society and their roles. It seems to me to be too many players with agendas that does not protect the clean athletes.” Helleland clearly believes protecting such athletes has been low on the priority list for certain members of the Olympic Movement and it is not difficult to see why. After all, political wrangling from officials, coupled with the continual diatribe from the very top of the Russian Government, has
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overshadowed the feelings and needs of those at the epicentre of sport – the athletes. The Russian doping crisis is a case in point, with a decision on the size of the country’s neutral team at last month’s Games made just hours before the colourful and energetic Opening Ceremony took place. Not only did it mean plenty of competitors across the Winter Olympic programme were unsure as to who they would be lining up against but it also took the spotlight away from the hundreds of clean athletes who were preparing for what could prove to be the biggest moment of their careers. A sense of frustration among certain athletes was palpable, compounded by the IOC lifting the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee three days after the Pyeongchang 2018 Closing Ceremony. Unsurprisingly, the main criticism of the IOC after they welcomed Russia back into the fold at the earliest possible opportunity came from anti-doping groups, who have been a constant thorn in the side of the organisation and of President Thomas Bach. WADA themselves stopped short of supporting it. In a statement, released after Helleland had seemingly jumped the gun by putting out a response of her own on her personal social media accounts, WADA merely said they “acknowledged” the IOC decision before providing a reminder that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency remains non-compliant. It is for these reasons, and others, why Helleland understands athletes’ frustrations. “Since I was elected vice-president of WADA I have said I want to be the advocate for the clean athletes,” she said. “That includes building a communication channel to their representatives. And what they tell me is that the frustration now is getting closer to indifference. That is a big warning for us all. As I have said many times: without the engagement of the clean athletes there is no way we can win the fight against doping.” It is a message Helleland is keen to reiterate. While some may question her motives and her political astuteness in this dog-eat-dog world, she does genuinely appear to have the interests of clean athletes at heart. “Their rights must be the most important issue. Always,” she adds for emphasis. Helleland was only elected to her WADA position in Glasgow in November 2016 but has already become a go-to outlet for those who want to get something concrete done rather than just talking about doing so. www.facebook.com/insidethegames
In her relatively short tenure to date, she has already established the “One Voice” group for representatives from public authorities within WADA. Work began on the “One Voice” project from the moment Helleland was confirmed as vice-president in the Scottish city just shy of 18 months ago and it formally came to fruition at the last meeting of the Foundation Board in Seoul last November. “This initiative aims to ensure that Governments have a well-functioning platform for an ongoing exchange of views and the development of better-informed strategic positions on current and emerging anti-doping issues,” Helleland explains. “In contrast with the sport movement, public authorities have lacked a standing platform where they can regularly discuss issues of importance relevant to WADA’s activities and subsequently mobilise rapidly to react to emerging challenges. “Anti-doping issues are now regularly reported in the media around the world and public authorities need to be able to quickly develop well-informed responses to articulately present and promote their positions.” The frank views she often expresses do not go down well with everybody. In fact, the murmurings in the corridors of the IOC are that certain members are terrified of this outspoken politician and the growing influence she now seems to garner in certain circles. Others, including those within the WADA leadership, remain wary of her presence. Helleland, however, is used to all of that. Having started her political career as a deputy representative in the Norwegian Parliament
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from Sør-Trøndelag during the four-year terms between 2001 and 2005 and 2005 and 2009, she has risen through the ranks to become a member of Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s cabinet. The 40-year-old then became head of the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs, whose remit includes sport, before moving to her current role in January of this year. “I have been a politician for many years,” Helleland says. “I know the name of the game. And we have our allies too that tell us what is said and done in different corners of the anti-dopingmovement. If people get scared of my engagement and my clear voice, well then it is more an inspiration than a thing that bothers me. Main: Linda Helleland has become a prominent voice on anti-doping matters. Photo: Facebook Top: Linda Helleland with FIFA President Gianni Infantino. Photo: Facebook Bottom: Linda Helleland tries out drug testing methods. Photo: insidethegames.biz
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Top Left: Russia were forced to compete neutrally at Pyeongchang 2018. Photo: Getty Images Bottom Left: Beckie Scott chairs the WADA Athletes’ Commission. Photo: Getty Images Below: Richard Pound is another outspoken critic of doping issues. Photo: Getty Images
to make the connection; Helleland is a public authority representative and could be a prime candidate to succeed Sir Craig. The question is, does she want it? “My job and passion for the anti-dopingwork is not about positions, it’s about direction,” Helleland says. “A vice-president at WADA is a volunteer role that I combine as Minister of Youth and Gender Equality at the Norwegian Government. I am grateful that I have the full support from our Prime Minister – a Prime Minister that understands how important it is to win the fight against doping.
“My aim is to strengthen WADA´s credibility. If that scares people it just shows me that I have to work even harder and more passionate for the clean sport.” Her detractors certainly won’t stop her from continuing in the same vein as she has done for the best part of the last two years but her main aim now is to persuade others, particularly athletes, to follow suit. This has long been a problem for people in a similar position to Helleland. She will have seen others obtain a high-ranking position within a sporting organisation only to bow and cower to those above. Often, their silence can speak volumes, but such accusations cannot be levelled at the Norwegian. “We need strong and clear voices that care about the lack of credibility we now have,” adds Helleland. “And I spend a lot of my time trying to
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engage more athletes to take part in the discussions. They have the power to change the culture and a system that needs to be fixed. “I think there are enough brave people who want to speak out. But we have to give them the knowledge and a platform where they can state their views. “They now see a system where the same people are occupying different seats; a few men who control the whole chain of communication and information. There are, for example, so many brave athletes out there who have clear thoughts about how we can clean the sport.” For now, attention turns to what the future holds, both for the anti-doping system as we know it and on a personal level for Helleland. Current WADA President Sir Craig Reedie, the veteran Scot who has been at the helm of the organisation throughout the most turbulent period in its history, is due to stand down next year. The 81-year-old, re-elected for a fresh threeyear term at the same meeting where Helleland became his deputy, has served the full six years and his time in charge will come to an end in Katowice in Poland in November. It will now be the turn of the public institutions to take over the Presidency, as per WADA’s rotation policy, and it is not difficult @insidethegames
“I want to contribute so that WADA is the strong and independent organisation that takes that fight for the clean athletes. “I would like to see a strong and independent WADA with powerful means to act when injustice is being done towards the clean athletes. I will commit my energy and time to try to help achieve these intentions.” Expect plenty more feathers to be ruffled in the meantime.
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THE SHAME GAMES Ben Johnson “wins” the infamous men’s 100 metres at Seoul 1988. Photo: Getty Images
South Korea welcomed the world for Pyeongchang 2018 this year, three decades on from their Summer Games in Seoul. Alan Hubbard reflects on an Olympics of doping cheats, boxing farce and political turmoil.
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t was 4.30am when the phone rang in my room at the Media Village in Seoul on September 27, 1988. “Get your backside down to the press centre, there’s a massive story breaking,” urged my good friend John Goodbody, of The Times. “Ben Johnson’s been done for doping!” Massive indeed. I think myself and other journos almost equalled the Canadian’s newly-established but phoney 100 metres record of 9.79 seconds in the dash to get to the International Olympic Committee’s hastily-summoned dawn press conference. Goodbody, who has always had a sniffer dog’s nose for a sporting drugs bust, had been tipped off by AFP for whom he had previously worked and who had in turn been told by an IOC source that Johnson had tested positive following the infamous dash for glory in which he had set what seemed to be an unbelievable time. And as it transpired, unbelievable it certainly was. The Jamaican-born Johnson was sensationally stripped of his gold medal amid understandable outrage, not least among his adopted country’s citizens who had screamed with delight at seeing him stick it to America by obliterating the reigning champion Carl Lewis, finishing almost a metre ahead of the multi-medalled American. The embarrassed IOC rushed Johnson onto a plane back to Canada. Despite several other controversies, nobody talked about much else for the rest of a Games that almost died of shame.
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It is now 30 years since Johnson’s fall from grace, from hero to zero, from being the fastest man on earth to the ignominy of handing back his gold medal in front of his sobbing mother just three days later. Not that news of Johnson’s positive test was a complete surprise, especially to Goodbody. When Johnson won, he had sprinted up the stairs in the stadium to remark to some of his colleagues: “I don’t know about anabolic steroids but it looked to me as if he was on rocket fuel.” In fact, Johnson had been given pharmaceutical assistance by his coach Charlie Francis in an attempt to overcome a late training injury. We had also attended Johnson’s press conference a few days before and noted how red his eyes were. Was it an infection? It turned out to be steroid rage. The race itself was riveting. You wanted to believe the time was real but the look of shock on Lewis’ face when he stared up at the board suggested something utterly unreal had happened. Until the Russians embarked on their corporate scale drugging programme, Johnson was the biggest cheat in Olympics history. Looking back Seoul was not the most exotic or exciting venue to have staged any of the dozen Games I have covered - being somewhat soul-less you might say - but there is little doubt that though not as enjoyable as Tokyo, Barcelona, Sydney, Athens, London et al, they ranked high among the most eventful.
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The men’s 100m final alone created enough talking points to last an Olympic lifetime. It was labelled “the dirtiest race in history” with five of the eight finalists including Lewis and Britain’s Linford Christie guilty of drugs offences later in their careers. Indeed, Christie, who was to become the 1992 Olympic 100m champion four years later in Barcelona, actually failed a test in Seoul at the same time as Johnson when traces of the stimulant pseudoephedrine were found in his system.
Drug problems plagued the Olympics in Seoul. Photo: Getty Images
Christie insisted the banned substance was contained in ginseng he was taking and was officially given “the benefit of the doubt” after a 11-10 decision by the commission. Then there was the women’s sprints. After demolishing the world record in the 100m at the Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, American Florence Griffith-Joyner set an Olympic record of 10.62sec in the 100m and a still-standing world record of 21.34 in the 200m to capture gold medals in both events. She added a gold in the 4×100m relay and a silver in the 4×400m. Griffith-Joyner had been a glamorous and successful sprinter in the years leading up to Seoul but had always finished among the minor medals. But in 1988, her physique noticeably altered and her voice deepened dramatically, both signs of possible steroid abuse. “She sounds like Louis Armstrong,” exclaimed one journalist at her news conference in Seoul. Of more enduring significance were the times she set in that unreal year. No woman, even 2000 Sydney Olympics triple champion Marion Jones, who eventually confessed to years of systematic doping, has even come close to Griffith-Joyner’s times for the 100 and 200 metres respectively. Flo-Jo, as she was known, announced her retirement in 1989, the year mandatory random www.facebook.com/insidethegames
drug tests were introduced. No allegations were ever proven and she died in 1998 aged just 38 after an apparent heart attack. It was not just on the track that controversy abounded. When competition started in the boxing tournament the sport immediately found itself deep in disarray. Firstly the two ring system caused a host of problems when fighters and referees were confused as to which bell or buzzer was active in their bout. One fight even had to be replayed when a fighter was knocked down by his opponent while mistakenly believing the round had ended. More serious were the events that occurred at the end of the featherweight clash between Aleksandar Khristov of Bulgaria and home favourite Byeon Jeong-Il. The Bulgarian’s points victory was only possible due to the deduction of two points from the Korean’s total by the referee for alleged headbutts. When the result was announced pandemonium broke out in the arena and referee Keith Walker of New Zealand was attacked by members of the Korean coaching team. Spectators and even security guards weighed in to support the local hero and Walker had to be protected by a cordon of his fellow officials as objects, including a chair, were hurled at him. Then arguably the worst decision in Olympic fistic history came in the final of the lightmiddleweight division when Korean Park Si-Heon was awarded the gold medal over American Roy Jones Jr. Jones had clearly outfought Park throughout the three rounds, landing almost three times as many punches – 86 to 32. Later it was revealed
Ben Johnson on top of the podium before he lost his gold. Photo: Getty Images
that several of the Seoul boxing judges had been given bribes. But Park’s 3-2 decision was never rescinded even though Jones was given the Val Barker Trophy as the best boxer of the Games. Subsequently he became one of the greatest professionals ever, winning multiple world titles before his retirement this year at 49. There was plenty to write home about in several other sports, too. American Greg Louganis won back-to-back titles in both diving events, but only after hitting the springboard with his head in the 3m final, his blood spattering into the water. Some years later Louganis revealed he knew he was HIV-positive at the time, but did not reveal it. However, since HIV cannot survive in open water, no other competitors were in danger.
Florence Griffith-Joyner was another big name on the track. Photo: Getty Images
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passports to pose as Japanese tourists. They’d also convinced security to let them keep the batteries in their carry-on “radio” which they’d turned on to demonstrate to security that it was harmless. In fact it was also a battery-powered bomb. The spies planted it in an overhead bin, then left the plane at a stopover in Abu Dhabi. Once Flight 858 was back in the air, the bomb exploded and killed all 115 people on board, most of them from South Korea.
journalists and to all the members of the Olympic family,” declared Juan Antonio Samaranch, then president of the IOC. South Korea suggested North Korea could host certain events in tournaments for sports like football, table tennis and archery. But the offer was a much smaller part of the Olympics than North Korea had wanted. The country desired to stage several full sports; not just a few tournaments within a sport. By the autumn of 1987, it was clear there
Greg Louganis famously knocked his head on the diving board. Photo: Getty Images
Elsewhere Christa Luding-Rothenburger of East Germany became the first - and only athlete - to win Olympic medals at both the Winter and Summer Games in the same year, adding a cycling silver to the speed skating gold she won earlier at Calgary. Anthony Nesty of Surinam claimed his country’s first Olympic medal by winning the 100m butterfly, scoring an upset victory over America’s 11-times Olympic medallist Matt Biondi. And another drugs bust saw British judo bronze medal winner Kerrith Brown disqualified. Despite his ban he later became chair of the British Judo Association. Inevitably, too, Seoul had been bedevilled by politics like so many other Games. In the run-up to 1988, the South Korean Government ordered Seoul’s “vagrants” to be cleared from the street. Thousands of people, many of them small children, were sent to a “welfare facility” called the “Brothers Home”, where allegedly they were subject to human rights violations such as severe, often fatal beatings and routine rape. Student demos about this and the spiralling cost of the Games were ruthlessly put down by riot police and the political and diplomatic rapprochement of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics this year between North and South Korea was in stark contrast to three decades ago. Back in the summer of 1988 it was a geopolitical hotpotch with riots, boycotts and the mid-air bombing of a Seoul-bound Korean airliner. On November 29, 1987, two North Korean spies boarded a South Korean plane in Baghdad. The pair had used fake names and forged www.facebook.com/insidethegames
The Olympic flags are waved at the Olympic Stadium. Photo: Getty Images
The authorities tracked down the spies, who tried to commit suicide with cyanide cigarettes. One of them died; the other survived and was extradited to South Korea - the same country where the Olympics were set to begin in 10 months. North Korea’s attempts to disrupt the Olympics began in the mid-1980s, after the IOC had already selected South Korea to host the 1988 Games. Astonishingly North Korea approached South Korea and the IOC with an unexpected proposal: could they co-host the Olympics with South Korea, splitting the events 50-50 between the two nations? It was a bizarre request, considering that no country had ever officially co-hosted the Olympics with another before. And it was stranger still that this was coming from North Korea, whose tight control on visitors seemed logistically incompatible with a multi-country event like the Olympics. “It is difficult for me to think that North Korea can open its borders to more than ten thousand @insidethegames
would be no deal. Yet for North Korea, the most disappointing aspect was that they were still unable to convince the Soviet Union and China to boycott the event. In early 1988, both countries announced that they would be among the 159 countries attending, although North Korea and fellow Communist travellers Cuba stayed away. Another milestone for Seoul was that these were the last Olympic Games for the great twin sporting powers of the Soviet Union and East Germany, as both ceased to exist as such before the next Olympic Games in Barcelona. The Iron Curtain was to be lifted to reveal a brave new world. And for South Korea, the fact that so many countries were participating was a diplomatic victory. The nation had only just transitioned from a military dictatorship to a democracy in 1987, and was eager to use the Olympics to introduce itself to the world. Which it did quite remarkably, if mainly thanks to a certain Benjamin Sinclair Johnson, trying to pull a fast one.
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GLASGOW LOOKS FUTURE
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TO THE
Four years after Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games, the sporting world is returning to the Scottish city for the launch of an intriguing new concept. Michael Pavitt reports.
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our years on from hosting what was declared to be the “best Commonwealth Games ever”, attention will return to Glasgow this summer for another sporting extravaganza. The Scottish city will not have the standard set by 19 previous editions to live up to this time. Instead, they will be hoping to play a central role in establishing a new multi-sport event into a packed international calendar. While European Championships in the sports of swimming, cycling, rowing, triathlon, golf and gymnastics might not seem a new idea, 2018 will mark the first time the sports are joined together as part of one single event, along with athletics action in Berlin. First unveiled in March 2015 under the guise of the European Sports Championships, the event was viewed by many as a direct rival to the European Games, which had its first edition just two months later in Azerbaijan’s capital city Baku. In truth, it was hard not to view it in that manner. It was certainly seen in that way by then European Olympic Committees President Patrick Hickey, with the Irishman bemoaning what he claimed were attempts to “threaten the great institutions of European sport”. A dispute, naturally, followed. The European Sports Championship Management hit back at claims that a clause in the contract, signed by federations competing in Glasgow and Berlin, supposedly barred them from taking part in official continental championships being held in
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Glasgow will be the main host of a new sporting concept this year. Photo: Glasgow 2018
conjunction with any other multi-sport events, such as the European Games. It is perhaps fair to say that Hickey’s later downfall was largely responsible for the cooling in tensions between the two, fairly embryonic, events as they both seek to make their mark on the sporting calendar. Hickey’s downfall, of course, is another story… His successor as the EOC chief, Janez Kocijančic, appeared rather blasé towards its supposed rival last year, stating: “First we looked at it as competition but then we said, ‘look, why not?’” That is not to say the EOC will not be watching from afar, particularly as the organisation and its parent the International Olympic Committee have made noises about the existing European sport model being under threat from rival leagues and bodies. It is worth considering the key differences
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between the European Games and the European Championships – which ditched the word sports from their name in their 2016 brand launch. The key and obvious one is the scale of the two events, with 20 sports featuring at the Baku 2015 European Games, and a more slimmed down 15 due for Minsk 2019. By contrast, the European Championships has seven sports, arguably a more manageable load for a host city. While the European Games has been driven by the EOC and National Olympic Committees, European Federations appear to have been largely behind the steering wheel for the European Championships. The teaming up of their existing European Championships does seem to make sense from purely a numbers perspective. It is claimed that a potential television audience of more than one billion viewers could tune in from across the continent and beyond, during the duration of the 11-days of competition
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from August 2 to 12. While the actual viewership could be debated, it seems clear that the potential number of viewers would be far greater than the Championships enjoy annually as standalone events. By joining together under the European Championship banner, it seems clear that greater spotlight will be cast towards the sports. This is partly due to the European Broadcasting Union reaching agreements with around 40 broadcasters. The BBC in the United Kingdom, ARD/ZDF in Germany, France Televisions in France, RAI in Italy and TVE in Spain are among those to have already signed up to broadcast the inaugural event. Around 2,700 hours of television coverage are expected to be beamed out by the broadcasters during the Championships. While it might also be beneficial for broadcasters to have all but one sport in the www.facebook.com/insidethegames
same city from a logistical point of view, the same could even be said for the federations. For instance, the European Championships for track cycling, road and BMX racing are set to take place at the same time for the first time in history. In 2017, the BMX and mountain bike events took place in July, with the road and track cycling following in August and October, with four countries acting as hosts of the respective disciplines. Unless you are the most ardent of cycling fans, it is possible these Championships may have slipped you by, whereas a combination of the three in Glasgow would make them far more difficult to miss out on. Admittedly, Glasgow will be the only city in the world capable of hosting all four of these cycling disciplines in the same place. This will be due to the completion of a £3.7 million Olympic standard BMX track, which has been constructed at the Knightswood Recreation Ground especially for the Championships. By contrast to other major sporting events, the construction of just one single venue for a Championships seems something of a painless task. It also should help to ensure a strong legacy will be in place post-Championships, with Glasgow City Council claiming it will benefit upcoming young athletes in the city. “Knightswood BMX Centre will be the latest addition to Glasgow’s world-class sporting estate,” said David McDonald, depute leader of Glasgow City Council. “As well as hosting major events, the state-of-the-art facility will be open for community use, helping inspire a new generation of young cyclists to take up the sport, leaving a lasting legacy for future generations.” The venue will join the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and the Cathkin Braes Mountain Bike Trails as permanent cycling venues in the city, with the former expected to offer up
several medal chances for local athletes. This includes Olympic champions Callum Skinner and Katie Archibald, who will be flying the flag for Scotland. As it did during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, the roads of the city are expected to become the playground of several of the top names of road cycling. Three-time world champion Peter Sagan of Slovakia and London 2012 Olympic champion Marianne Vos of The Netherlands are among those to have clinched the European title in the first two editions of the road event. It will be hoped that the same packed streets shown for the Commonwealth Games races will be replicated, while highlighting the major sites in the city, such as the Riverside Museum, the climb up Buchanan Street, Kelvingrove Park and the neo-gothic architecture of the University of Glasgow. The Championships are also set to continue the run of major sporting competitions held by Glasgow in the years since the Commonwealth Games. Gymnastics competition quickly returned to the city after the Games, with the 2015 World Artistic Championships hosted at the SSE Hydro, the versatile multi-purpose arena. The Ryder Cup was also held at the Gleneagles Hotel in 2014, with the venue now set to host an innovative European Golf Team Championships as part of Glasgow 2018. While there will also be individual men’s and women’s events, the first edition of the mixed team tournament is sure to provoke interest. Strokeplay will be used to determine the teams’ cumulative score, with the lowest coming out on top. Naturally, given the lukewarm response of golfers to the Rio 2016 Olympic tournament, it will be fascinating to see how many of the sport’s biggest names will be teeing off later this year.
The city was credited with staging a successful Commonwealth Games in 2014. Photo: Getty Images
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Athletics heads to Berlin
Berlin’s role in the event remains open to debate. Photo: Berlin 2018
Given that medals in the six sports hosted by Glasgow, as well as the diving in Edinburgh, will be awarded on all but the opening day of the Championships, it is likely the venues will be as packed as they were four years ago. It is clear that Glasgow will hope to benefit from the European Championships in a similar way to the benefits brought by the Commonwealth Games. A year on from Glasgow 2014, it was claimed that the city had enjoyed a £740 million boost to its economy, as well as securing rights to future sporting events. It is clear the Games offered Glasgow a chance to show its ability to host major sporting events, something it will be seeking to reinforce with both hands later this year. Part of this will involve their “Festival 2018” project, which will run alongside the duration of the Games to highlight the culture of the city. The majority of the cultural activities will take place in George Square, which organisers claim will bring the city centre to life, highlighting their music, visual art, street art, dance, theatre, digital art and comedy. A total of £120,000 has been invested into a fund for community groups to put on cultural events and arts activities in their own area before the Games. “Co-hosting the inaugural European Championships with Berlin will yet again shine a light on the city to European and international audiences and the scale, ambition and innovation behind each of the festival fund projects shows us just why world class arts and cultural activity is at home in Scotland,” said McDonald. “Communities and visitors can expect to be entertained by an exciting range of performances that span the spectrum of spectacular art forms.” Given these efforts, it will be fascinating to see how Glasgow marry their sports and cultural www.facebook.com/insidethegames
activities with the athletics, which is taking place in Berlin over the final six days. A concern is the Championships will feel like two completely separate events, which would deal a blow to the future of the multi-city format. However, if done well it could lead to other major events following the same path in the future. In theory, cities could effectively pick and choose the events they can host without the need for construction of a permanent venue. For instance, velodromes have often been cited as a major expense for cities when it comes to hosting an Olympic or Commonwealth Games, often with uncertainty over how much the facility would be used in the future. Could a successful multi-city concept help bring an end to fears of white elephants in the future, while maintaining the feel of one single event? The success of the Championships, first and foremost, would have to see a host or hosts secured for the second edition. If they do find a second host, perhaps the Championships could prove something of an ala carte event in the future, with cities able to pick and choose sports that suit their existing facilities. Could it be that cities could add further sports if it suits them, or remove others if it proves too problematic? If that were the case, it could open up the number of potential hosts considerably, with smaller nations possibly having the chance to join together to co-host. More so than they might be able to for a European Games, perhaps. Should a second host not prove forthcoming, it might just suggest that Glasgow happened to be a willing city at the right time to host six individual championships, rather than being part of a potentially innovative event which could be replicated in the future. To paraphrase Glasgow 2018’s “The Moment” slogan, the lack of a second host would see the inaugural event to be just… a moment. @insidethegames
Berlin is the co-host of the 2018 European Championships and will stage the athletics from August 7 until 12 in the iconic Olympiastadion. The stadium, built for the 1936 Olympic Games, has a capacity of 74,475 and German organisers report that tickets are selling fast for the Championships. By the beginning of March, a record 150,000 tickets for the event had been sold. Many spectators will have happy memories of the last major athletics event the stadium hosted - the 2009 International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships when Usain Bolt set world records for the 100 and 200 metres on the blue track and a bear called Berlino became everyone’s favourite mascot. The event is remembered fondly by many as the best IAAF World Championships in history: a triumph of organisation, outstanding athletic performances and fan engagement with an unforgettably electric atmosphere. “With the Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships being part of the European Championships, European Athletics will have the perfect platform to promote our sport across the continent and worldwide to what we hope is an unprecedented television audience,” European Athletics President Svein Arne Hansen, co-chair of the 2018 European Championships Board, said. Athletics may continue to have its problems, but the sport remains hugely popular in its European heartland. A record television audience of 358 million watched the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zurich with 33 broadcasters producing 1,677 hours of coverage. “Just like in 2009, Berlin is going to experience a colossal celebration, but this time, better,” Berlin 2018 director Frank Kowalski said. “With 48 disciplines over the six-day event, the European Championships confirm their incomparable diversity.” Duncan Mackay
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MIKE ROWBOTTOM CHIEF FEATURE WRITER, INSIDETHEGAMES
Fight, for your right, to
paaarrrrrttttyyyyy! Olympians toil for years at a time so it’s no wonder they need to let off steam. But as Mike Rowbottom reports, sometimes they go too far.
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arning Olympic medals will always command admiration. But celebrating so hard that you have to be wheeled back through the Olympic Village in a shopping trolley - that is deserving of affection, even adoration. Well. Affection. Such was the Olympic course of Britain’s Billy Morgan once he had - against wider expectations but clearly not his own - won snowboard bronze in the men’s big air at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. After assuring the press that he had been “in bed pretty early” the night after his event, he then admitted: “I sent it too hard, too early and peaked out. All the Kiwis got there and asked ‘Where’s Billy?’ but I’d gone. I don’t remember but apparently I was taken back in a trolley.” On his trolley and off his trolley at the same time…can a deal with Sainsbury’s or Lidl be far away? Four years earlier this sometime roofer from Southampton had made headlines at the Sochi Games for dancing with a toilet seat around his neck after the Closing Ceremony. For sure, young Billy didn’t make it to the top two steps on the podium. Those were filled by Sebastien Toutant and Kyle Mack. But I suspect he will be remembered more vividly by most casual Olympic observers than his two fellow medallists. Once our Olympians have reached their Olympic heights, it makes them seem a little more mortal if they let their hair down a bit too low. Paavo Nurmi. Unlike Billy Morgan in so many ways, other than, perhaps, a working-class background. Nurmi was the polar opposite of our happy-go-lucky loon of a Brit. He may have had a nickname – the Flying Finn – but that didn’t make him approachable, easy-going, one of the boys. By all accounts, for all that he was an incomparable runner as he set about
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Robert Harting celebrates gold on the London 2012 hurdles. Photo: Getty Images
collecting eight Olympic gold medals, with stopwatch clamped in hand, his bearing before, during and after these fabled exploits was remote. Grumpy even. He was admired, revered. But those that knew him best had their own nickname for him - “The Great Silent One”. It might have been so different for Nurmi. A little dance as he came over the line, perhaps veering out into lane eight, just for the hell of it (we had to wait for Kenya’s double Olympic champion Ezekiel Kemboi to witness that) would have seriously altered perceptions. But no. It was not to be. Of course it’s no good if everyone goes bonkers when they earn their Olympic laurels. There has to be a level of normal, joyful acknowledgement by which to measure the kind of glorious excess we witnessed in the wake of the men’s discus final at the London 2012 Games. Germany’s newly minted gold medallist Robert Harting, 6ft 7in and 20 stone, ripped and then rid himself of his competitor’s vest before draping a national flag over his shoulders and lumbering off to the home straight, where, with unexpected facility, he cleared the majority of barriers set up for the women’s 100 metres hurdles final. Next, he raced towards the Olympic cauldron, reached in, and attempted unsuccessfully to liberate one of the flaming prongs. After leaving the stadium he embarked upon an epic night of celebration aboard a German cruise liner docked on the River Thames, continuing on dry land (as it were) before ending up asleep on a train and being robbed of his accreditation - meaning he was denied entry to the Olympic Village… Harting remains a legendary celebrant, and other than his uncomfortable scenario at the Village his post-match exploits earned him no censure.
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History records, however, that some jinks come a tad too high as far as the officialdom is concerned. Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser famously pushed the envelope at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics after a first and second placed finish had taken her collection of Games medals from 1956 to four golds - including three successive 100m freestyle titles - and four silvers. She was honoured with the task of carrying the Australian flag in the Closing Ceremony. And indeed she did. With a limp that was explained by her activities while celebrating the previous evening. Fraser was partying hard at The Imperial Hotel, in company with the bulk of the Australian hockey team. As she described in her book, Below the Surface – Confessions of an Olympic Champion: “At one stage one of the Olympic officials was wearing a kimono while the owner of the kimono was dancing about in a large Australian dressing gown. As theolympians.co well describes, around 2:30am, a little less than 12 hours prior to her scheduled march into the National Olympic Stadium carrying her country’s flag, Fraser decided the time was ideal to leave the party in company with an official and a hockey player in order to go flag-hunting at the Emperor’s Palace. An Olympic flag was chosen, and duly liberated, although not without much swearing. Fraser was entrusted with taking it to home base as the police arrived, and after stealing a bike to get away from them she then hit a wall before jumping eight feet down into the concrete Palace moat and badly twisting her ankle. The police didn’t press charges. Indeed, the police captain involved later made a present of the flag to Fraser. Unfortunately, the Australian Swimming Union couldn’t see the funny side, and banned the errant aquatic for 10 years. Some people just don’t get it, do they?
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