THE COLUMN: For Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs, Beijing 2022 has been the “most exciting and difficult” task in his almost 21 years at the IOC

This February 19, 2022 was another significant day for Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs: on the eve of the closing ceremony for the Beijing Games, the 139th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) elected him as one of its four vice presidents.

This project occupied almost all of his time in the last five years as the main link between the Olympic body and the Chinese organizers.

In the Coordination Commission of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Samaranch began as a member in 2016, a year later he would lead it on an interim basis to replace the Russian Alexander Zhukov, suspended by the IOC, and in 2018 his position became official.

Since joining the IOC on July 16, 2001 in Moscow, the same day his father culminated a historic career and on which the Belgian Jacques Rogge was elected the eighth president of the IOC, Samaranch Salisachs has fulfilled numerous tasks inside and outside various commissions.

But in his opinion, Beijing 2022 was “perhaps the most interesting, exciting and difficult Games.”

He is currently the head of the directors bureau of the Olympic Channel in Spain and since 1996 he is the first vice president of the International Union of Modern Pentathlon.

“It has been a privilege to experience these Games so closely and to contribute a grain of sand,” Samaranch replies in an exclusive interview with Around The Rings shortly after his new election. The Spanish leader, 62, had already been on the Executive Commission in the 2012-2016 period and in the IOC vice presidency for the first time from 2016 to 2020.

Samaranch, the only candidate for the vacancy left by the Chinese Yu Zaiqing, received 72 votes in favor, 4 against and 7 abstentions in a second moment of the body’s assembly devoted largely to internal elections.

Samaranch will assume the vice presidency on May 22, when this unprecedented drawn out session closes due to COVID-19 prevention measures.

President Bach honored the work of the preparations and development of the Games with the delivery of the “Olympic Cup to the People of China” after the reports of the Organizing Committee and the Coordination Commission.

This trophy is awarded annually by the IOC to an institution or association in recognition of its active role in the Olympic movement.

“I am focused on continuing to collaborate with the current Olympic strategy framed in the 2020+5 Agenda. Luckily we have many years of a great presidency of Thomas Bach and we have to focus on the real and current challenges” says Samaranch, who arrived in Beijing for several weeks before the opening of the Games and the challenge of the Paralympics that begin on March 4 is still pending.

“Until today, everything has gone very well, the Games are very difficult to organize, especially due to the pandemic and the additional difficulties that the virus has exposed, but we never had any doubts about the organizers.

“We still have a few hours to go before the closing, it is not the time to put a note, but to clench our teeth and take this project to the finish line.”

In the closed circuit management system, a system of separations for those who are within the “bubble” implemented by the Games’ health protocols, a large part of the daily contacts with the Organizing Committee and the IOC professional teams and the hosts are held daily by videoconferences

“Today we already have few significant issues, but every detail counts, even a bus that is delayed, which is not a drama because it happens in all the Olympic Games. But you have to avoid it.”

“The numbers of the infections show that everything that was done with the Playbooks, the instructions, the restrictions and the daily PCRs to the athletes and the Olympic family in general, have worked better than we thought.”

“We must preserve, with the same energy and stubbornness, these protection measures until after the Paralympics.”

“All the positives detected have been on arrival at the airport, including people with two negative tests before leaving their home country. There have been no infections within the bubble “per se.” As athletes and other accredited personnel no longer arrive in these final days, the incidents will be zero.

-It might seem obvious but... was the situation dealing with COVID-19 more complicated in Tokyo or Beijing?

“It is very difficult to guarantee. The Summer Games faced higher volumes of people and also, with a year of delay, causing tremendous headaches for the Organizing Committee and the IOC and all the Sports Federations. But they became a reality.

“Here the difficulties have been of a different nature. And thankfully, the Games did not have to be postponed.

“Each Games have required a battery of different measures and capacities in each case. In both it was possible to bring the best athletes in the world in the vast majority of sports.”

“Let’s wait until the closing ceremony to know the qualifier given to it. What I am telling you is both in Tokyo and in Beijing, the effort they have made to develop a superstructure of complexity for the organization of the Games, already complex in themselves, to protect everyone from the pandemic has been impressive.”

-The Beijing Games faced a diplomatic boycott decreed by the United States and supported by several countries, saying China should not be an Olympic host country due to the human rights situation. What was the effect of the boycott?

“Neither. Nobody has refused the invitation to the IOC. All the National Olympic Committees and all the athletes who wanted to come have come here. We do not extend invitations to politicians. In the same way that we ask for respect for the independence of sport, we have to respect the political world.”

“If the rulers of certain countries decide they want to attend the Olympics or not, it is something we aren’t concerned with.”

-Speaking of politicians. Do you think the Russia-Ukraine crisis has been a constant threat to the Olympic Truce? Could that danger have influenced athletes?

“Right at the IOC Session, President Bach drew attention to “these times of high tension in the world” in which the Games were held. The reality is that almost 3,000 athletes, including the best in the world in winter sports, came here after many disappointments, with difficulties in their training, in their qualifying tests.”

“And they have all been found living in the Olympic Village, they could be Russians, Ukrainians, from any ‘hot zone’ place in the world. And all have lived together under the purest Olympic spirit.

“Of course we cannot ignore what is happening in the world. The turning point of the Olympic Truce has been another demonstration of Olympic values, which I wish there were more like ours in this world of confrontation.”

-Can you give us a preview of the closing ceremony?

“I can’t anticipate anything... But in general we will see a show that mixes tradition and technology that will give a vision of China today.”

- What legacies would these Games leave for China?

“We’ll hear it at the ceremony soon enough. One of them could be the opening of a new era for winter sports with more than 300 million practitioners in that nation.”

-Since we talk about legacies, Barcelona 1992 had its own. Are there plans for the 30th anniversary of those Games?

“I don’t know, I don’t know them, but it is a great anniversary for all Catalans, all Spaniards. I would celebrate it not for turning 30, but every year.”