Most Swedes are educated, democratic citizens and good sportsmen who have learnt to live with the fact that few people get their way all the time. So, when a Swedish sports leader diplomatically protests publicly about breaches of democratic rules in an Olympic sports world that claims to fight for human rights and fair play, it's worth listening.
Especially if the quiet Swedish protest comes from a high-ranking member of the Olympic family, which has a tradition of changing the Olympic rules at will and suppressing virtually any democratic debate on Olympic matters.
"I am very surprised and very disappointed. We had a vision of being able to organize the Olympics and the Paralympics in a completely new way, unfortunately the IOC’s new process was not ripe for a candidacy that wanted to be sustainable, cost-effective and democratic."
So said Hans von Uthman, president of the Sveriges Olympiska Kommitté (SOK), when his home country with proud winter sports traditions, including winning 176 Winter Olympic medals, had its bid to host the Winter Games rejected for the ninth time at an IOC executive committee meeting in Paris on 30 November 2023.
Back then, THE INQUISITOR questioned what the Swedes keep getting wrong when they have everything, ice and snow and almost all the necessary sports facilities? What has Gunilla Lindberg - eternal official and Swedish IOC member - done to get dumped like this once again?
Jens Weinreich
But neither Hans von Uthman's quiet protest nor the questions about the IOC's undemocratic, secret process to host the Olympic Games have been made less topical by the fact that the IOC has accepted that the elected French hosts of the 2030 Winter Games no longer meet the original deadline for obtaining state guarantees for the Games.
The lack of French state guarantees is due to this summer's general election in France. It is now up to the country's new government to decide whether it wants to provide the required Olympic guarantees.
Less than a year ago, the IOC used the same lack of state guarantees in Sweden as an argument to exclude the Swedish bid to host the 2030 Games - a full four months before the IOC's stated deadline for obtaining state guarantees expired.
This discrimination calls for critical questions from IOC members in Sweden and all the other Nordic democracies as to why the IOC operates with different rules for France than for Sweden?
