This newsletter is exclusively for you, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. You are no longer an IOC member – not even one suspended. You have not been a member at all since the closing of the 144th session. Allow me to look back, respectfully, on the many years we spent together.
The 144th IOC Session has come to an end. And because it was so pleasurable in the luxurious Greek resort, the IOC decided to return to the next luxury resort for the 2027 session: the Lopesan Costa Bavaro Resort, Spa & Casino, Punta Cana. Money is no object, after all.
The first female president in the 131-year history of the IOC is Kirsty Coventry, a 41-year-old two-time Olympic champion from Zimbabwe. Kirsty Coventry is the president Thomas Bach wanted. Because Bach is convinced that Coventry is the best person to administer his legacy.
Samaranch or Coventry, that is the question. Coe was not only thwarted, his performance remained surprisingly poor, as if he himself had never believed in becoming IOC president. Lappartient, Watanabe, Eliasch and Feisal just don't want to come in last. The water level report.
Why Kirsty Coventry will become IOC president next week. What would have to happen to prevent it – an ethics complaint against Bach et al, for example. What the latest multi-billion dollar TV deal has to do with the election, and the dubious paths that led Coventry in the IOC in the first place.
There are not even ten full days to go to the election of the 10th president in the history of the International Olympic Committee. Nobody should completely rule out the option of the first female president, even if there is increasing resistance to the plans to install Kirsty Coventry.
The world is out of joint. So far, the fascist madness in the White House has had little direct impact on the Olympic system. But let's not fool ourselves: what despots, billionaires, warmongers and Nazis do will also have a lasting impact on organized Olympic sport.
The IOC has further tightened the rules for the presidential election campaign and made them absurd beyond recognition. Debates are prohibited. Questions in the IOC plenary not allowed. This index compares and checks the suitability of the candidates – everything that the IOC leadership prohibits.
Yesterday Budapest, tonight Dubai and tomorrow India – first in New Delhi, then in Mumbai in the evening. Sebastian Coe is very busy. He not only makes trips as president of World Athletics, it is always about the IOC presidency, and in the case of Hungary and India, also about Olympic bids.
Do you like Excel spreadsheets? Are you interested in statistics and fascinated by the question of how sport politics can be translated into forecasts? Here you go: the ranking of the 7 candidates for the IOC election in 2025. In a similar way, I predicted the 2013 result quite accurately.
A few surprises and deliberate confusion are guaranteed by the IOC rules and what feels like a thousand possible exceptions. But the list of candidates for the presidency has been finalised. One woman and six men want to take the Olympic throne next spring.
... she submits her candidature by Sunday. Go ahead and bet while the odds are still attractive. Could anybody beat the Moroccan? Nicole Hoevertsz? At least nobody would have to talk anymore about the non-transparent IOC rules and the strange opinions of a dubious IOC Ethics Commission.
Will Thomas Bach have the Olympic Charter amended and begin a third term in office? Will he even step down once in this millennium? Who has he chosen as his successor? Many questions, important background information and some answers.
Thomas Bach fell for pranksters. Of course, this has also happened to high-ranking politicians in recent years. However, it surprises how arrogantly amateurish the IOC Sun King acts. What do his many princely-paid directors actually do for a living if they advise Bach incredibly badly?
One of the biggest crime stories in the Olympic world takes another surprising turn. The Executive Board of the IOC has suspended the highly influential Sheikh Ahmad Al-Sabah as an IOC member for three years. The consequences are hard to foresee. It has the potential to blow up the Olympic family.
