FrancsJeux publishes a column by Jean-Loup Chappelet, professor at the University of Lausanne.
The Olympics are a victim of their own success: they have become too gigantic. The six candidates for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) all recognize this in their candidacy manifestos: it is imperative to better control the size and cost of the Games, while ensuring that they remain unique for the athletes and the television viewers. The current president of the IOC – still for one month – wrote it in black and white in his campaign program, twelve years ago already. But facts are stubborn. The final figures for London 2012 have just been released: the Games have grown even larger in many parameters (accreditation, transport, security, sponsors, etc.). Their cost amounts to 10 billion euros of investment (financed by the public sector) and 2,8 billion euros of operation (financed by sponsors, spectators and television networks), i.e. a total of nearly 13 Billions of Euro's. The Russian Ministry of Finance announces that the total cost of the Sochi Games in 2014 will be 38 billion euros. These costs and organizational complexity regularly reduce the number of candidate cities and countries (from 11 for 2004 to 5 for 2020).
At the same time, more and more sports want to be included in the Summer Olympic Games program to benefit from their media coverage and participate in the redistribution of their commercial revenues by the IOC. Seven sports were pre-selected by the IOC for only one to join the 2020 Games: baseball-softball, climbing, karate, roller sports, squash, wakeboard and wushu. Probably none will be selected in order to keep wrestling on the Olympic program and thus respect the artificial quota of 28 sports at the Summer Games (set after Sydney 2000). In any case, it is not the addition of a sport that will satisfy the expectations of the many disciplines that would like to join the Summer Games. Furthermore, few sports can join the Winter Games because, according to the Olympic Charter, they must be practiced on snow or ice. Ice climbing and sled dog racing are sometimes cited. The Winter Games have therefore grown mainly by the addition of numerous skiing and snowboarding events in all their forms.
The future president of the IOC is therefore faced with a dilemma: accept more sports, disciplines and events at the Summer Games at the risk of making them even more gigantic, costly and risky to organize; or dissatisfy most of the sports that want to become Olympic at the risk of seeing them create competing competitions and contest the role of leader of world sport that the IOC wishes to play. This last possibility is not a figment of the imagination when we note the development over the last ten years of all kinds of multi-sport competitions such as the Continental or Regional Games (including European Games from 2015), the World Games (which bring together certain non-Olympic sports), category games (university, military, schoolchildren, etc.), thematic games (Combat Games, Beach Games, Mind Games, Urban Games, etc.), summer X-Games and winter of Disney (for "extreme disciplines") and the project of the new president of SportAccord (association of most international sports federations) to create a "sports festival" which would highlight, every four years, all the disciplines of its members in a single (very large) city or country.
The solution to this “Olympic dilemma” that the new IOC President will have to face upon his election next September is to create a new edition of the Games: the Spring Olympic Games. These Games would take place every other odd year between the Winter and Summer Games. They would bring together, to begin with, around fifteen non-Olympic sports or disciplines, among the most universal and popular, notably taken from the thirty already recognized for a long time by the IOC. These Games would take place in spring (April-June or October-December in the southern hemisphere) which would facilitate their organization in countries that are very hot in summer. In the long term, that is to say when the Spring Games have reached their cruising speed, we can imagine that certain disciplines present at the Summer Games or who want to join them will join these new Games and thus lighten the program of the Games summer. Basketball could introduce its 3×3 version and football its futsal. Volleyball could keep beach volleyball for the summer and classic volleyball for the spring, etc. In the long term, we could also imagine fall Games when the number of Olympic-caliber sports justifies it. In ancient times, the Games at Olympia were complemented by the Nemean (at Nemea), Pythian (at Delphi) and Isthmian (at Corinth) Games which constituted a popular four-year “circuit”.
A Spring Games would make it possible to disseminate the Olympic message once again during an Olympiad (especially in the vast majority of countries which do not participate in the Winter Games) and to generate additional income for the IOC, the NOCs and the IFs. who would participate. Sponsors would indeed appreciate a more regular association with the Olympic world, and no longer just every four years. Smaller cities and countries could more easily organize the Spring Games as long as they avoid the inflation of the Summer Games.
In fact, these Games have existed since 1981: they are called the World Games and take place every four years, one year after the Summer Games. Their ninth edition just took place in July 2013 in Cali (Colombia) and brought together more than 4.500 athletes from 101 countries in 201 events in 26 official sports and 5 demonstration sports. These Games are not controlled by the IOC, but by a similar although less prestigious organization: the World Games Association. They would benefit considerably from the contribution of the Olympic brand, as the Paralympic Games have benefited. It would be enough to strengthen the cooperation agreements between the IOC and the World Games which have existed since 2005 and to make the president of the World Games, like the Paralympic Games, a member of the IOC.
These Spring Olympic Games may seem utopian and risk encountering opposition, but they are a unique opportunity to strategically position the IOC in the face of increased competition. All candidates for the IOC presidency want to increase its role and relevance at the head of world sport. Whoever is elected must be inspired by Coubertin who created, in 1924, the Winter Games against the opposition of the Scandinavian countries which had their Nordic Games, or by Samaranch who postponed, in 1994, the Winter Games by in relation to the Summer Games. These two major innovations have undoubtedly contributed to strengthening the IOC. We must emulate them!
