It is no longer time for hype for the six candidates for the presidency of the IOC. The campaign has started. And, with it, the first speeches. After the Swiss Denis Oswald, the quickest to draw out his program, the German Thomas Bach in turn opened his box of ideas. He did it from Berlin, by teleconference. And immediately played the “flexibility” card. »
For the former fencing medalist at the 1976 Games, the Olympic movement must undertake serious flexibility work. Thomas Bach suggests “maintaining a limit on the number of athletes and establishing another limit on the number of permanent facilities. » So far, nothing very new. But the German follows in the footsteps of his Swiss rival, Denis Oswald, by also suggesting dividing the Olympic cake into narrower and therefore more numerous slices. “We could thus extend the number of disciplines, add more fashionable ones and more attractive ones for young people,” he says.
Flexibility, Thomas Bach would also like to introduce it into the application process for the award of the Games. Readily critical, the German jurist puts his foot down. “We need to ask ourselves whether we are demanding too much, too soon from candidate cities. We organize seminars, we have questionnaires with I don’t know how many questions, and we end up with files that read in a somewhat similar way because they answer the same questions.”
Either. How to go about it ? How to reform a process considered complex, but not easy to move? Thomas Bach responds, but without really providing a truly concrete solution. He imagines a system that would be “an invitation to all countries to come with their own perceptions of the Games and tell us how, based on their traditions, their culture of the Games, they could possibly organize them.”
More precisely, candidate Bach also wants the creation of an Olympic channel, which would broadcast competitions in a wide variety of disciplines, while not neglecting the less publicized ones. “Many Olympic sports do not appear on television around the world. If they are not seen enough on television and on the internet, they will lose more and more children and young athletes. »
The campaign for the succession of Jacques Rogge at the head of the IOC has only just begun, but it promises to be exciting. Announced as a battle of men, it could also turn out to be a debate of ideas.
