Seine-sational: the insanely arrogant lack of transparency of the Olympic UIPM and its 'internal investigations' into a possible corruption case

Last week, from Paris, I reported exclusively on the John Helmick case. According to everything that has been researched since then, Helmick's alleged private business as UIPM treasurer could be the result of a system that has dominated the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) for years or even decades.

US citizen John Helmick has been refusing to answer questions for a week and a half now. Helmick has gone into hiding. Of course, the presumption of innocence applies. Helmick does nothing to clear things up in public.

He's not the only one.

UIPM body investigates its treasurer John Helmick, who had to leave Paris at lightning speed

The Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) is once again creating bad news. John Helmick, son of a former IOC vice president and ally of UIPM Supremo Klaus Schormann, who has been in office for 31 years, has had his Paris accreditation withdrawn. The case raises many questions.

THE INQUISITORJens Weinreich

Since 1993, president of the UIPM has been the German Klaus Schormann (78), who is unfamiliar with basic good governance rules and runs his organisation in the style of a duodecimo prince. Fittingly, on 16 November 2024, he will hand over his office to his long-time buddy, Joël Bouzou, a Frenchman with close ties to Russia - at the UIPM congress in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Of course, Klaus Schormann and the UIPM have long been tapping into the new sources of money in the sporting wonderland of Saudi Arabia. Most of the Olympic and many of the non-Olympic world federations do the same. They always go straight to where they can cash in easily and find flimsy justifications, lies and excuses as to how this can be reconciled with the much-vaunted Olympic values, human rights, democratic achievements and good governance rules. 

The non-transparent practices at the UIPM have been widely reported on in recent years, and not just since the incidents at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. I have been describing the Schormann system since around 1996 and our intensive discussions on the fringes of an IOC EB meeting and ANOC's general assembly in Cancún, when he once again managed to get pentathlon saved as an Olympic sport.

Then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch had briefly forgotten at the time that Schormann had long since made his son Juanito UIPM vice-president (which he remains to this day) and that it would have been kind of stupid at home in the Samaranch household if the father had ruined the Olympic career of his son of the same name.

Guys, this is not a joke. It happened like this.