Top Story Replay - Craig Reedie on London, Olympic Bids, New IOC President

This story was originally published Sept. 11.

(ATR) It’s been a big summer for Craig Reedie, IOC member from Great Britain.

He’s enjoyed the success of the London Olympics and Paralympics. In July he was elected as a vice president of the IOC.This month he was named to chair the Evaluation Commission of the three cities bidding for the 2020 Games.

Reedie, 72, has been an IOC member since 1994. He’s been president of the International Badminton Federation and served as chair of the British Olympic Association.

As the Games wound up last month, Reedie talked with Around the Rings Editor Ed Hula about a range of issues ahead for the IOC, including the election of a new IOC President, the size of the Games, bids for the 2020 Olympics and the possibility of a new try for the Games from the U.S.

Around the Rings: How do you think London has been received?

Craig Reedie: I would like people to think too we’ve been good hosts.

People genuinely seem to be enjoying themselves, and I think at the end of the day that London has been good for the Games.

This is a complex city with an active democracy and a very active media and the whole thing has run extremely well. I think that is good news for the IOC. That may be good news for other cities that are looking at the challenges London had. Who knows? This might encourage other major cities to come back into the race.

I also think that the Games appear to be good for London. There seems to be a spirit in this city… there seems to be happy people in the city and the country seems to be pleased with what we delivered and a lot of that has been the success of the team, which has been way beyond our expectations

While we can’t beat the States or China, so this is as good as it gets for British sport.

ATR: How do you keep that going for British sport in Rio de Janeiro? There won’t be the automatic qualifications, it won’t be a hometown crowd, so how do you make sure there isn't a precipitous decline in the performance?

CR: When we started this whole process and decided to bid with London, one of the more important things was to move sport up the social and political agenda. You’ve heard me say that before.

That I think was what we most definitely achieved, now it is up to others to pick up that baton and run with it.

The success of elite sport is about funding, about money. The bigger sports are organized, and there are question marks on some sports. The British team in Rio will be smaller, and we won’t qualify teams, and the European area is the most complex one to get out of.

It would be marvelous if we could qualify handball teams and volleyball teams. We normally only qualify hockey teams.

The funding for elite sports I think is there. The challenge will be is if the country enjoys what they have seen and if the country feels that sports are an important thing, how do they take it forward?

ATR: Were the Games in London as big as they can possibly be?

CR: I think it would be possible to include another couple of indoor sports, and to do that you need to vary the number of athletes in each sport.

I think the IOC rule of 10,500 athletes is fine and the number of sports could go from 28 to 30 by kicking a number of smaller sports into the program.

The issue is the number of athletes. The village needs to be big enough to host 10,500 plus coaches and that I think is about right. And clearly a mature city like London can do it. I think that is good enough for the IOC.

ATR: Difficult decision coming up in the next few months for the IOC about whether to cut a sport from the Olympic Program.

CR: We are locked into a system that we established years ago that we would have 25 core sports. And the end result of that is we have to disappoint one of the current 26 and put it back into a bidding process with the others.

I accept that commitment that was made and that’s what we are going to do. Personally, if you are going to review the program after each Games, I’m not sure you need 25 core sports.

I mean this may develop over time and it’s always divisive when you are forced to exclude one, but you have the opportunity to come back with the bidding process and try again.

The Program Commission will be meeting and seeing all the applicants. I’m comfortable with the process and accept that it’s a tough call.

ATR: What factor do you think will weigh most on your colleagues on the executive board when it comes time to choose a sport? When you look at the possibilities what makes you want to...

CR: The criterias have to be wide enough for every sport to make its case. I mean soccer sells zillions of tickets so how do you compare soccer with three days of wrestling? You can't do it on crowd attendance and it’s difficult to do it on television audience, you have to have other standards.

How popular is it worldwide? How competitive is it? How well run is it? How well received by the public is it? At the end of the day we will rely to a great extent to our administration to bring us those statistics and at the end of the day we’ve been asked to make a decision, so we will.

ATR: And you have to decide next year on a new IOC president. What do you think your colleagues are looking for in a new president?

CR: The last 12 years Jacques Rogge solidified everything the IOC has been doing. He’s been involved in absolutely outstanding games in Athens, much better than people anticipated, absolutely outstanding games in Beijing, and now absolutely outstanding games in London, the highest possible quality, good people running them good organization running them.

Everyone talks about the Youth Games, they’ve clearly filled a hole in the Olympic marketplace that way, without that being marketed in money terms. Young people clearly enjoy going to a Youth Olympics.

All of that is a pretty good report card. I think members will simply want to continue. I don’t see people coming forward with revolutionary ideas. Personally I look forward to seeing the manifestos from the candidates when they eventually appear.

We are very presidential in governance structure. We actually seek a huge range of talents from the person we appoint to be our president. I think in the current climate a different governance system might work with wider representation using different people, with different skills, to do different things rather than leaving all of it to one man or woman. It’s a big job.

ATR: You just have three cities running for 2020. What is your thought on how that race is shaping up?

CR: It’s a particularly different election this time because they offer entirely different things.

Tokyo is a safe choice in the sense that they have run the Games before, their economy is sound and they have some work in rebuilding their country, like the British.

Istanbul is an interesting choice, big city, interesting city.

Spain have been there before and they have a lovely capital city. Is their economic trouble, is that going to count against them?

The struggle the IOC has against them in any of their bidding processes is that they can’t be taking a decision on certain things that apply in 2013. You are taking a decision about what will be around in 2020 and that’s a tough call.

London is a good example. The British economy was bouyant in 2005, and we’ve had to put this together in one of the toughest economic conditions of all time.

We now know from the IOC point of view of what happens in an economic downturn. The challenge for whatever Evaluation Commission is going to do this, is to get enough information on what conditions will be like in seven years time.

ATR: Then the United States is starting a process to consider bidding again. Would you think the idea of a US bid in 2024 would be good?

CR: I think that would be well received by the Olympic Movement in every way. This long running negotiation [IOC-USOC revenue sharing] is behind us and both parties seem very satisfied by it.

I think USOC chair Larry Probst and CEO Scott Blackmun have done a good job realizing that this is a relationship and friendship type of business. I was told many many years ago by a senior member when London was bidding, please remember, he said, the IOC like to award to games to people they like and there is a very strong ring of truth with that.

I think that the current leadership of the USOC is getting to that business of being liked and I think that helps. There is no doubt at all that the IOC would welcome a really good bid from the United States. I thought Chicago…technically it was excellent by the lake, good transport going for it.

ATR: What other cities does the IOC like? Is New York possible?

CR: New York is an iconic city. I don’t know enough about it to see where the Games would fit, but certainly this is the message of London. London is an iconic city. Look what we’ve been able to do. Is the same possible in New York?

Do you have a deprived area that you can turn into a magic place like the Olympic Park in London?

San Francisco has always been my favorite place as far as I am concerned, but I’ve been told there are structural issues in San Francisco that I’m not sure I fully understand.

ATR: Los Angeles?

CR: They’ve got the facilities.

ATR: Do you think that makes a difference for the IOC? If you look at a U.S. bid and it’s Los Angeles seeking a third Games?

CR: I think the IOC’s point of view is that they’d very much like to have an American bid, but to leave the choice of cities to the USOC than to be speculating on what city the USOC might choose.

I’ve never been a huge fan of domestic contests to decide what city you’ll put forward because at the end of the day those domestic contests leave other cities disappointed and it’s hard to get national unity behind one bid.

We tried this with Birmingham and with Manchester twice and we finally got it right with London, so maybe it’s best for the USOC to look at this.

Conducted in London on Aug 11 by Ed Hula.