Marius Vizer is not a man to easily accept failure. And even less to apologize. The president of SportAccord nevertheless forced his nature, Tuesday May 19, a month almost to the day after his improbable anti-IOC speech delivered in Sochi. Speaking through a press release signed with his name, he asked to meet Thomas Bach to, he said, repair the damage caused.
True to his character, Marius Vizer did not allow himself to make amends. But his hand extended to the IOC and its president has everything of a step backwards. Certainly, the president of SportAccord speaks of the need for a meeting “for the unity and interest of the sports movement. » He says the time has come to ease the “pressure” that has been weighing on international federations since the SportAccord Convention last month in Sochi. Clearly, he justifies his action by a form of reason of state. But his maneuver fools no one: Marius Vizer has no other choice but to try to renew the dialogue with Thomas Bach, otherwise he will soon find himself all alone in the middle of the ford.
The day before, weightlifting joined the battalion of international federations having cut ties with SportAccord. A withdrawal which brings to 10 the number of federations which have already expressed their disagreement with Marius Vizer by slamming the door in his face. And everything suggests that the list could grow in the days or weeks to come. An evil that never comes alone, the international boxing (AIBA) and taekwondo (WTF) federations have forced the line of their disagreement by announcing their withdrawal from the next World Combat Sports Games, in 2017, an event created and managed by SportAccord.
What does Marius Vizer want? His press release provides part of the answer. “I hope to have an honest discussion that is in the best interests of the sport,” he wrote. A discussion that leads to concrete solutions. » The president of SportAccord, also president of the International Judo Federation (IFJ), mentions that he would also like to meet representatives of ASOIF, the Summer Olympic Sports Association, chaired by the Italian Francesco Ricci Bitti. An organization also dissident from SportAccord since the already famous speech in Sochi.
Beyond the press release and its very diplomatic formulas, Marius Vizer hopes above all to save what can still be saved from an organization, SportAccord, of which the IOC no longer hesitates to ensure that the Olympic movement could very well do without. His Sochi coup ended in failure. Marius Vizer may claim, in his press release, to have noted a "growing number of requests for registration for SportAccord from international sports organizations" since his speech on April 20 in Sochi, it is no secret that its future is now written in dotted lines.
By reaching out to the IOC and ASOIF, the Romanian is trying to put the pieces back together. Too late? Likely. One thing is certain: Thomas Bach emerges as the big winner from a conflict that he did not even wish for.
