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Weeding out less popular sports. Combining the Olympics and Paralympics. Making sure Africa gets to host the Games. Hey, how about renaming the IOC the World Sports Organization? Those are just a sampling of the proposals put forward by the seven candidates hoping to step into Thomas Bach’s shoes as the next President of the International Olympic Committee.
The new IOC President, who will be chosen in one of the world’s most discreet elections on March 20, will assume responsibility for the five rings brand recognized the world over. Despite the lurking spectre of climate change and delicate political issues — what to do about Russian athletes, whose Olympic Committee is currently banned for violating the Olympic charter? — no one thinks the Games are in real trouble, but everyone has ideas on where they should go from here. Cue the clamor for change.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, IOC President Thomas Bach and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti react after … [+] the confirmation of the tripartite agreement which awarded Paris and LA the Olympic Games of 2024 and 2028 at an IOC session in 2017. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
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The most dramatic proposal comes from International Gymnastics Federation President Morinari Watanabe, who envisions the Olympics happening on all five continents at once, with a host city on each continent and contests that would play out in different time zones 24 hours a day. Decentralizing the Games in this way, Watanabe believes, would reduce the financial burden on host cities while providing greater commercial opportunities, a sports business win-win.
“In my opinion, many people want the revolution,” Watanabe said in a Q and A with reporters on January 30.
And just because a sport has been part of the Olympics for a long time does not necessarily mean it belongs in future editions of the Games, according to Johan Eliasch, President of the International Ski Federation. Eliasch is for reviewing current Olympic sports and assessing their “attractiveness to fans, entertainment value, and potential for technological integration,” the Swedish-British businessman wrote in his candidate manifesto. “This review could consider both the inclusion of new disciplines and the continuing viability of others.”
Eliasch also thinks the Olympics should intersect more directly with the Paralympic Games, which are traditionally held right after. “Relay competitions with able-bodied and Para athletes teaming up should be explored, looking for new formats that will allow viewers to focus on the extraordinary abilities – not disabilities – of all participants,” he wrote.
Other candidates have been more sedate in their proposals. “I must say that I find evolution more appealing than revolution,” quipped David Lappartient, the International Cycling Union President, whose credentials include spearheading the effort to secure the French Alps as Olympic hosts for the 2030 Winter Games.
Having an Olympic Games in Africa is high on Lappartient’s agenda. His federation chose Kigali, Uganda to host the Road Cycling World Championships this year, and he told reporters he was “not setting a specific deadline” for the continent to have the Olympics. Nevertheless, Lappartient thinks it’s feasible that a Games be attributed to Africa during the next President’s mandate.
“Africa deserves it,” he said.
HRH Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan modeled his pitch around an “Olympic Agenda 2036” whose imperatives include “inspiring imagination, ensuring integrity, and developing inclusion.” If those seem like rather blanket terms, Al Hussein also proposes to review when the Olympics are held, “so more cities can bid,” he wrote.
Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe promises an athlete-centered approach should she become the first woman and first African ever to win the IOC Presidency. Having swum at five Olympic Games before retiring after Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Coventry knows better than most what athletes want and need.
Mostly she thinks they want support to live and train in ways that assures they are able to fulfill their potential at the Games. “In my journey it was easy to get sponsorship once I’d won a medal; it was getting to that medal that was tough,” Coventry reflected. One way to level the playing field for athletes of different nations, she feels, is to develop apps that will allow Olympic hopefuls “to train anywhere and everywhere in the world.”
Sebastian Coe, the British lord who has led World Athletics for the past decade, pledges to work toward “shared-value models where athletes benefit from the Games’ commercial success.” Whether this would look something like the NCAA’s Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) model where college athletes can make money from sponsorship deals and get a cut of profits from things like jersey sales, has yet to be fleshed out, but Coe, a two-time Olympic champion in the 1500 meters, is keen to explore it.
“Athletes drive the value of the Games,” Coe observed. “I will develop programmes that could allow all athletes to share the commercial rewards they help generate, empowering them as partners, not just participants.”
Juan Antonio Samaranch, whose father was IOC President from 1980 to 2001, is looking inward. One of his action points is raising the age limit for IOC members from 70 to 75, and giving the power to choose Olympic host cities back to the membership, a move he feels would be “more aligned to the current times.”
Samaranch, a founding partner at one of Spain’s top investment banking firms, also proposes creating a billion-dollar investment fund for the IOC’s various foundations, and believes that with donor contributions it could be done within five years. “This partnership structure would enable the IOC to participate financially with minimal risk,” he said.
Common grounds
Candidates do agree on a few things. With varying degrees of stridency, almost all talk about preserving women’s sports as the domain of those who were born biologically female, developing, as Coe puts it, “clear, science-based policies that safeguard the female category.”
“Women’s sports must be ring-fenced: no ifs, no buts. There can be no grey areas,” Eliasch added. “We need to be open-minded about how to recognise the fact that every human being has a right not only to participate in sport, but to compete at the highest levels. This could mean, for instance, separate categorisation based on biological identity and science-based metrics. It’s not about exclusion—it’s about fairness and safety.”
On the question of Russia, candidates more or less agree that at some point, Russian athletes will return. “The objective would be to have them come back into the fold,” Lappartient said cautiously, while adding that the country’s invasion of Ukraine at the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in 2022 effectively sealed its own fate.
“This evidently needs to be resolved before other decisions can be made, so it seems a bit premature to make such a decision, either for the 2026 Olympics or in the middle and long term,” he added. A few candidates pointed out that leaving the Individual Neutral Athlete program in place for now would allow Russian and Belarusian athletes who have not been demonstrative about supporting the war a pathway toward competing at the Games for themselves.
“There’s nothing I’d like more than to be able to have the whole world at the Olympic Games. I think that’s what our objective is. It’s about inclusion, not exclusion. But I also recognize that there are certain limitations and concerns about how to extend it,” Al Hussein said. “But obviously any nation that violates the Olympic charter will face sanctions.”
While staunchly non-political, the Olympic Games strives to convey a messages of peace and unity … [+] like this one from the Closing Ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
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The IOC has pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030. Some inside and outside the IOC think one way to do it is to establish a rotating schedule of “permanent” host cities, especially for the Winter Games. So far Eliasch is the only one to publicly embrace the idea, calling it “a win-win for the movement and for the planet.”
And in a world that feels increasingly uncertain, all concur that the new IOC President must be able to lead with a firm hand.
“Having an IOC President and leaders used to exercising power in a tense climate will be essential,” Lappartient predicted. “The pendulum has swung back against globalization. This will not leave the world of sport untouched.”
All are confident that the Olympics will continue to thrive — under the right management, of course. “Our glorious past does not guarantee us a bright future; that is something we must earn and work for every day,” Eliasch said. “Though the IOC is not a business, it must be run in a businesslike manner. In practice, that means clearly defined metrics for achievement, with accountability for success or failure.”
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