Olympic Highlights
IOC ACTIVITIES
PRESIDENT
IOC President Thomas Bach met the Director General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Guy Ryder. The two men discussed the close cooperation between their organisations. Collaboration around sport, the Olympic Games and decent work, human rights, were also discussed. During a visit to The Olympic Museum, originals and copies of official archives and correspondence from the 1900s between Pierre de Coubertin and Albert Thomas, the first ILO Director General, were presented.
With the President of World Rowing and IOC Member Jean-Christophe Rolland, discussions focused mainly on the preparations for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and the Youth Olympic Games Buenos Aires 2018, as well as other topics of mutual interest.
President Bach and IOC Member John Coates, who chairs the IOC Coordination Commission for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, discussed the progress of preparations for these Games, in particular the implementation of the “New Norm”, as part of the strategic reforms of the Olympic Agenda 2020, which could help the Organising Committee to optimise its budget and reduce the complexity of the Games.
Meetings also took place with IOC Executive Board member Ser Miang Ng and IOC Members Alex Gilady, Danka Bartekova and Seung Min Ryu, as well as with IOC Ethics Commission Chair Ban Ki-moon and Angela Ruggiero, who was an IOC Member until February 2018.
President Bach met International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons, with whom he talked about the excellent cooperation between the two organisations, which was further strengthened a few months ago by the signing of a long-term partnership agreement.
President Bach welcomed a delegation from NBC led by NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel. He took the opportunity to thank NBC for its contribution to the success of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 as well as for its partnership with the Olympic Channel. IOC Member Alex Gilady was also present.
The IOC President also hosted Valérie Fourneyron and Benjamin Cohen, respectively Independent Chair and Director General of the International Testing Agency (ITA).
OTHER OLYMPIC NEWS
INTERPOL and the IOC have held a workshop to strengthen Nigeria’s fight against corruption in sport and competition manipulation. The workshop brought together 70 representatives from Nigerian law enforcement, government, betting entities and sports organisations, as well as a delegation from Ghana. They addressed current threats to the integrity of sport, as well as global crime trends in competition manipulation. Among the speakers was Nigerian NOC President and IOC Member Habu Gumel. The two-day event (on 23 and 24 May) was hosted in close cooperation with the Nigeria Police Force and the NOC, and was supported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). More details here.
INTERNATIONAL SPORTS FEDERATIONS
SUMMER IFS
A few months before the start of the qualifying process for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) released a step-by-step guide which underlines the events not to be missed on the road to Tokyo and provides videos clarifying the qualifying process. A total of 324 athlete places for the gymnastics events will be up for grabs between this year and the spring of 2020. More details here.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) took part in the health promotion event “Walk the Talk” organised on 20 May as part of the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s 70th anniversary in Geneva (Switzerland). With Geneva field hockey club Servette HC and Generation Games, the FIH organised a hockey initiation programme for the public, which attracted hundreds of people including WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Experts from federal, cantonal and city authorities, United Nations (UN) agencies, permanent missions of a variety of countries to the UN, NGOs and academia also participated in “Walk the Talk”. More details here.
The International Swimming Federation (FINA) organised a total of 24 aquatic sports clinics in March and April this year, in cooperation with the respective national federations, as part of its development programme. Four Diving Certification Courses were held in Riga (Latvia), Beijing (People’s Republic of China), Surabaya (Indonesia) and Cairo (Egypt), with eight Artistic Swimming Development and Certification Courses in Ljubljana (Slovenia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Calgary (Canada), Pasig City (the Philippines), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Cairo and Beijing. Swimming, Open Water and Water Polo Schools and Technical Workshops were also supported by FINA in Portugal, Latvia, Thailand, South Africa, Namibia, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Chinese Taipei, Argentina, Canada, Tunisia and New Zealand. More than 440 participants benefited from these courses. More details on www.fina.org.
The first meeting of the expanded Council of World Rugby was held on 16 May in Dublin (Ireland), with the 13 new union and regional association representatives. This meeting was the first under the governance reform spearheaded by World Rugby Chairman Bill Beaumont and passed by the decision-making body in November 2017, which saw World Rugby increase the number of people on the Council from 32 to 49, with the 17 new representatives to be women. At the meeting, the Council was updated on global player welfare advances and preparations for the Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan. More details here.
The International Surfing Association (ISA) has announced that the 2018 ISA World Surfing Games (WSG) and the 2018 VISSLA ISA World Junior Surfing Championship (WJSC) will offer equal competition slots for men and women - continuing the ISA's commitment to gender equity. The 2018 ISA WSG are set to take place in Tahara (Japan) from 15 to 22 September, while the WJSC are taking place in Huntington Beach, California (USA), from 27 October to 4 November. More details here.
Meeting in Halmstad (Sweden), the International Table Tennis Federation's (ITTF) Assembly General Meeting has supported that the ITTF Foundation be officially established. The ITTF Foundation will act as the ITTF’s Corporate Social Responsibility arm to take on humanitarian projects, aiming to build solidarity through table tennis. To celebrate the creation of the Foundation, North and South Korean athletes teamed up to play an exhibition doubles match (photo) for the ITTF members to show the unifying power of sport and particularly table tennis. The ITTF Foundation will be headed by former ITTF Development Director Leandro Olvech. More info at www.ittf.com
At its Mid-Year Meeting, World Sailing released its five-year strategy 2018-2022. The Strategy is broken down into four pillars, namely Participation; Membership and Governance; Sport Integrity; and Leadership in Sport. Each pillar has a clear set of detailed strategies which will provide World Sailing with direction over the next five years. More details here.
NATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEES
A cooperation and exchange agreement was signed on 6 May by the Algerian NOC and the Mauritanian NOC at the Olympic Museum in Algiers, in the presence of the members of the Algerian NOC Executive Board and national sports federation presidents. The agreement, signed by the NOC presidents, Mustapha Berraf (right of photo) and Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mah (left of photo), covers exchanges of athletes and coaches in various sports, and aims to strengthen relations between the two countries.
The Belgian NOC has announced the death of Olympian Germaan Van de Moere (photo) on 11 May at the age of 96. Canoeing world champion in Prague in 1958, he took part in the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 and Rome in 1960. More details on www.teambelgium.be.
On 22 May, the National Theatre hosted a performance of a ballet entitled “Olimpia”. This unusual, multidisciplinary performance in three acts was organised by the NOC of El Salvador in the framework of the Olympic Gala. Combining art, culture and sport, the show brought together dancers, musicians, the El Salvador Opera children’s choir and athletes Carlos Ceceña and Oscar Andres (fencing), Michelle Velasco and Pablo Ibáñez (athletics). The country’s best athletes of the year were also honoured at the Gala. More details here.
The Spanish NOC has announced that the Board and General Assembly of the Olympic Sports Association (ADO) have approved the list of athletes who will receive ADO grants in 2018. In all, 49.41 per cent of the grant-holders are women (168 female and 172 male athletes). The ADO has also published its list of 331 athletes who will receive a grant for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. More details on www.coe.es.
On 24 May, the NOC of Kazakhstan opened a permanent exhibition entitled "Olympic Movement in Kazakhstan" in the Library of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Astana. The exhibition will showcase the sporting history of the country, the history of the NOC, Kazakhstan’s participation at the Olympic Games and the performances by the country’s athletes and will feature items belonging to the athletes. Kazakhstani athletes Serik Sapiyev, Vassiliy Levit, Denis Ten, Guzel Manyurova, Kairat Yeraliyev and Abzal Azhgaliyev were the honorary guests at the inauguration. The opening of the exhibition has been timed to coincide with the celebration of Olympic Day. Indeed, on 23 June, one more exhibition is scheduled to open. Olympic Solidarity is also supporting the launch of this exhibition. More details on www.olympic.kz
RECOGNISED ORGANISATIONS
Experts from more than 20 International Federations (IFs) governing Olympic summer and winter sports gathered at the sixth edition of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) Forum on Sport Development and Education on 17 and 18 May at the headquarters of the International Cycling Union (UCI) in Aigle (Switzerland). As well as agreeing on a joint action plan for the year ahead, the Forum provided a platform for productive exchanges about the important role of IFs in developing their sports at all levels and recent success stories such as humanitarian projects or programmes aimed at safeguarding athletes. IOC experts talked about opportunities offered by the Olympic Games, the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) and Olympic Solidarity programmes. The development of online education tools which will benefit IFs and their National Federations was discussed, as were plans to develop an online coach education system, applicable across all sports. Full details here.