PASO Rebuilding Relationship with Olympic Movement

(ATR) A new president with International Olympic Committee potential and growth of the Pan American Games shows the Pan American Sports Organization is on the right track for the future.

Barbados Olympic Committee president Steve Stoute tells Around the Rings in an exclusive interview that he likes the odds of PASO's new president Neven Ilic becoming an IOC member.

"He certainly has age on his side," he tells ATR, noting Ilic's age of 55. "It would have been ideal if he was already an IOC member but I believe It’s only a matter of time before he is selected by the IOC.

"I think he’s done a pretty good job as president of the Chilean Olympic Committee and I’m optimistic that he will make a good leader."

Ilic was elected president of PASO at its annual general assembly in Punta del Este, Uruguay from April 24-26 where the organization’s next Executive Board was also elected. The elections represent some of the biggest changes seen in PASO since the reign of former president Mario Vazquez Rana began in 1975.

Rana’s death in 2015 led to International Aquatics Federation president Julio Maglione stepping in as a placeholder president while PASO modernized its constitution and paved the way for the elections last month.

IOC president Thomas Bach witnessed the election of Ilic to lead PASO for the next four years. Ilic will now try to continue to grow PASO and build upon a foundation that Rana was instrumental in developing, according to Barbados Olympic Committee president Steve Stoute.

Stoute recalls to ATR the election of Rana in 1975 over incumbent Jose Beracasa and how the organization has changed in the past 40 years.

"I remember that meeting in 1975 vividly, really," Stoute says. "It was the first time Mario Vazquez Rana paid the airfares for a number of countries including Barbados and I think it was the first time I can remember that accommodations were paid for PASO delegates.

"I also recall that it was a tense meeting because Beracasa did have a quite large following but Rana, of course, as we all know won the election and I must say he did work to revolutionize or change PASO quite considerably using much of his own funds at the time."

Over the next 40 years, Rana would implement a number of changes to PASO including the voting procedure to host the Pan American Games and how Executive Board members were elected. While Stoute notes that tensions between he and Rana rose over his attempts to assert more control over PASO, the former president undoubtedly helped increase the prominence of PASO in the Olympic Movement.

"Despite our disagreements, I always felt that Vasquez Rana was totally committed and dedicated to the athletes of the Americas," Stoute notes. "In the first eight years, we saw quite a bit of change with how Rana negotiated the television rights and fees for the Pan American Games, and that provided quite a lot of revenue for PASO.

"After that, things didn’t change very much for the better in my view until the most recent changes which I think would have come about even if Mario had not died."

The changes that Stoute was not in favor of included the selection of PASO’s vice presidents by Rana, the division of the executive board into three groups and, most importantly, the provision that countries that hosted the Pan Am Games previously would have more votes to decide the future hosts.

Stoute says that these attempts to exert more control over the organization led to PASO’s relationship with the Olympic Movement to sour. He believes that the election of a new president and executives will put PASO in a better position to grow yet again but warns that too much growth could be a detriment.

"The organization in my view became a bit isolated and I think with these changes the relationship with the IOC will be a lot better and more positive," he says. "My concern is the size of the Pan American Games and the fact that it continues to grow and it’s going to be harder and harder to find a host city.

"Adding a discipline like body building and a number of others in my view is making it more and more difficult to host the Games. Unless PASO looks at downsizing the Pan American Games they are going to find a major problem finding host cities."

Stoute also points to Ilic’s potential to become an IOC member given his youth at age 55 as a positive for PASO moving forward.

As for Stoute’s future with PASO, he is still undecided on any official roles with the organization. Stoute will step down as president of the Barbados Olympic Committee this August but will remain as vice president of the Central American and Caribbean Sports Organization until 2019.

The elections at the PASO General Assembly in Uruguay could likely be the last Stoute witnesses in a long sports administration career.

Written by Kevin Nutley

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