Fog of Olympic politics descends on Buenos Aires
Important decisions like which city will host the 2020 Olympics and who will head IOC are expected to be taken.
- Jere Longman, The New York Times
- Updated: September 07, 2013 05:10 PM IST
For Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo, the big news comes Saturday, when one of those cities will be chosen to host the 2020 Olympics. On Friday, the Hilton Hotel lobby was thick with handshaking, huddling, rumor mongering and promises inevitably to be betrayed. (Jacques Rogge opens his final IOC session)
Alex Gilady, a delegate of the International Olympic Committee from Israel, said: "There are those who guess, those who hope and those who think they know. But no one knows a thing." (Madrid, Tokyo, Istanbul makes last push to lure IOC)
The Olympic committee has another election Tuesday, this one to replace its technocratic president, Jacques Rogge. And while the talk here may seem to center on the 2020 Games and, oddly enough, on the Kardashians, it is ultimately more about the IOC's murky internal politics.
"Most people are talking about the presidential election," said Rene Fasel, a genial Swiss dentist and IOC delegate who is president of the International Ice Hockey Federation. "The city choice doesn't seem as important." (Related read: Will squash be able to grapple with wrestling)
That is a candid and curious statement given that the 2020 Games will not be held in London, as they were in 2012, when the biggest concern was whether the Rolling Stones would play the opening ceremony.
Granted, worries about aging rockers who wear eyeliner, one of whom claims to have snorted his father's ashes, are no small international matter. But they do not rival the issues facing the candidate cities for 2020.
Istanbul is faced with a Syrian war on Turkey's border and national tensions between secularists and Islamists. Madrid has a recession-battered Spanish economy and yawning unemployment. Tokyo is 150 miles from a stricken nuclear power plant.
Heavyweights including the prime ministers of Turkey and Japan will make a final pitch Saturday to the IOC's delegates. The face of Madrid's bid is Crown Prince Felipe of Spain, a former Olympic sailor who is still adjusting to this whole nonroyal business of being a spokesman.
The prince is tall and polite but, he explained, he cannot talk to the media here because he does not talk to the Spanish media at home. So Madrid's message is being put out by a spokesman who will not speak.
Thankfully, that is not true for another Madrid supporter, Los Angeles Lakers forward Pau Gasol. He is gracious, urbane and willing to answer any question, even those about reality television.
At a news conference Thursday at another hotel, Gasol spoke about a former teammate, Lamar Odom, who is married to one of the Kardashian sisters, at least for the moment.
News reports surfaced that the troubled Odom may have checked into rehab. (And, really, who could blame him?) Gasol said that he had attempted to contact Odom and wished him recovery, if the rumors were true, because "I have a great love for Lamar."
For those keeping score at home, Odom is married to Khloe Kardashian. That is not to be confused with the NBA betrothal that Kim Kardashian had to Brooklyn Nets forward Kris Humphries, a union that seemed to expire faster than the 24-second shot clock.
A more famous, if less voluble, supporter of Madrid's bid is soccer star Lionel Messi, which underscores the IOC's favorite pastime after self-promotion - conflict of interest.
Messi is backing Madrid while he happens to be sponsored by Turkish Airlines, the official airline of Istanbul's Olympic bid. Given Messi's stature, he is not likely to face a red card from the airline.
On Friday morning, Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado of Japan schmoozed in the Hilton lobby. Next came Vlade Divac, the 7-foot-1 former NBA center, wearing jeans, untucked shirt and sneakers after his luggage was lost. It was difficult to tell whether he was president of the Serbian Olympic Committee or leader of the world's tallest boy band.
Asked if he ever wanted to be president of the IOC, Divac laughed and said, "I don't think they have a chair big enough for me."
Six candidates are not so reluctant. Sergei Bubka of Ukraine, still the world-record holder in the pole vault in retirement, may not be considered the best presidential aspirant, but he definitely has the best hair.
The favorite is Thomas Bach, a lawyer from Germany, who won a gold medal in team foil at the 1976 Montreal Games. For the uninitiated, team foil has everything to do with fencing and nothing to do with baked potatoes.
Recently, Bach was the subject of a withering German television documentary. He was accused of cheating at fencing; appearing in the files of the East German secret police, or Stasi, as part of an influence-peddling scheme; and heading an Arab-German chamber of commerce with anti-Israeli leanings.
Christian Klaue, a spokesman for the German Olympic Committee, called the allegations "nonsense," and Bach said, "I have nothing to add."
Bach was long ago cleared in an influence-peddling scheme regarding the World Boxing Association. Gilady, the IOC delegate from Israel, said, "To accuse Thomas Bach of being anti-Israeli is idiotic."
There remains a kerfuffle involving the support of Bach by an influential IOC delegate and member of the Kuwaiti royal family named Sheik Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah. The sheik has been slapped on the wrist for breaking an IOC ethics rules against public support of candidates.
"It's a clear violation," said Denis Oswald of Switzerland, an IOC member and presidential candidate.
Gianni Merlo of Italy, who is president of the International Sports Press Association, took another view of the sheik's being admonished for stating his opinion.
"The IOC," Merlo said, "is the only organization where you get in trouble for telling the truth."
© 2013 New York Times News Service