On the Scene: Copenhagen Congress Examines Ways to Improve Olympic Movement

(ATR) The autonomy of the Olympic Movement and good governance and ethics are two of the items under discussion on day two of the 13th Olympic Congress in Copenhagen.

The Oct.3-5 congress at the Bella Center, scene of jubilant scenes Friday when Rio secured the 2016 Olympics, aims to take the pulse of the Olympic Movement and explore ideas for improvement.

The two topics will be considered in sessions on two of the five congress themes: ‘ The structure of the Olympic Movement’ and ‘Olympism and Youth’.

IOC vice president Thomas Bach, European Olympic Committees president Patrick Hickey and FIFA president Sepp Blatter are among those who submitted contributions on sport and autonomy.

Congress organizers received a total of 1,804 contributions: 453 from members of the Olympic Family; 1,319 from the general public; and 32 from the IOC administration.

Canadian IOC Member Dick Pound, who made a record 15 submissions to the Congress, will have some of them discussed on Sunday. Pound matched Iceland Olympic committee president Olafur Rafnsson in making the most contributions.

One of them concerned women in sport, with Pound noting the progress in achieving a 50:50 balance of male and female athlete participation at the Olympics; in Beijing it approached 55-45.

But goals of bringing more women into the IOC membership and within international federations and national Olympic committees have not been reached in accordance with date limits, he writes in his contribution: “It is an area in which, when all is said and done, more is said than done.”

Day one of the congress focused on ‘The athletes’ and ‘Olympic Games’. IOC members Denis Oswald, Gunilla Lindberg and Rene Fasel were among the speakers Saturday. Following plenary sessions on the two themes, breakout sessions for delegates were the setting for discussions on specific topics such as Olympic values, universality and developing countries.

Switzerland’s Oswald spoke about the bidding process for the Olympics and made a case for the time period to be shortened from when an applicant city is named a candidate city. He recommended that when cities declare their intentions to bid they should immediately be asked to complete IOC questionnaires on their technical plans.

He said it would allow the IOC to more quickly evaluate those which should be accepted and rejected for a bid race and stop cities entering a bid contest purely to enhance their international reputations on the global stage through association with the Olympics.

Oswald, head of the IOC coordination committee for London 2012, also called for the IOC Evaluation Commission procedure for reporting on the candidate cities to be overhauled.

He said criteria for the analysis appearing in the final report, usually published one month before the IOC decision on a host city, should be expanded with a greater focus on environmental issues and the quality of hospitality extended to the Olympic family.

He added: “By saying that all the bidding cities could organize good games we are provoking votes o f sympathy.”

Oswald is not asking for any ranking of the finalist cities for an Olympics but more insightful pointers on how cities compare.

He also advocates reducing what he calls “the debauchery of excessive lobbying we have seen”.

Lindberg, IOC member from Sweden, spoke about the growth of the Games. The secretarygeneral of the Association of National Olympic Committees remarked that Beijing 2008 set a number of records including the participation of 205 NOCs and 10,708 athletes.

Commenting on the universality of the Games, less than a day after the IOC awarded the Games to Rio and South America for the first time, Lindberg said smaller nations should not be overlooked in the future.

“Bid cities are spending millions of dollars. It’s almost impossible for smaller NOCs to even consider bidding,” she said.

She called for the IOC to open up opportunities for smaller countries to host the Olympics, adding that the Games would otherwise only be limited to G8 or G20 countries in the future.

“We should find a system that makes the Olympic dream possible for more cities and NOCs all over the world,” Lindberg told delegates.

On Monday, the final day of the congress, the theme under discussion is ‘The Digital Revolution’. Sessions include: a new management of sports rights; how to increase the size of the sports audience; and communication with stakeholders in the digital age.

The congress concludes with a summary of discussions and presentation of a document to delegates that will list specific topics for further examination.

No decisions will be made at the congress. IOC President Jacques Rogge has said its recommendations will be explored in more detail in the coming months. Various working groups may be set up to continue the work of the congress.

A 750-page book of the contributions to the congress, each limited to 1,000 words, was given to members of the Olympic Movement in attendance.

At the 1994 Olympic Congress in Paris – the last one held – organizers received 441 contributions from 397 individuals or sports bodies.

With reporting from Mark Bisson