Governing Bodies
IOC BOSS SAYS TOKYO 2020 CAN BE COMEBACK FESTIVAL OF SPORT AS ONE-YEAR COUNTDOWN MARKED
IOC president, Thomas Bach believes Tokyo 2020 will be the “great comeback festival of sport” as the one-year-to-go milestone until the postponed Olympics is marked.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) President insisted that organisers will make adaptions to combat the coronavirus situation by the time of the Games next year.
Bach delivered a video message to mark the countdown to the postponed Games, which were initially scheduled to open tomorrow in the Japanese capital.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and Bach agreed to the postponement in March, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doubts still remain over next year’s Games, however, with the pandemic causing social and travel restrictions across the world.
Sporting events have been impacted, although several competitions have now resumed behind closed doors or with restrictions on spectators.
Bach offered an upbeat message to mark the one-year-to-go countdown.
“With only one year to go, a mammoth task still lies ahead of us,” Bach said.
“I would like to thank our Japanese partners and friends, headed by Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, Tokyo 2020 President Mori Yoshirō and Governor Koike Yuriko, and the athletes, all the Summer Olympic International Federations, the NOCs, TOP Sponsors and rights-holding broadcasters.
“Without their solidarity and support, we could not have taken this historic joint decision to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
“I am deeply impressed and grateful for the extraordinary progress already being made in the preparations since the joint postponement decision.
“This milestone of one year to go is a very significant one, for sport but also for the worldwide society.
“It can and will be the great comeback festival of sport to the international scene.
“We are preparing for this in the one year which remains to make these Olympic Games a real great festival of hope, resilience and of solidarity.
“These Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020 in 2021, can, should and will be the light at the end of the tunnel that all humankind is in at this moment.
“We are living a period of great uncertainty.
“Then at the end of this very difficult period for humankind, the Olympic Games can be a great symbol of hope, optimism, of solidarity and unity in all of our diversity.”
The coming months are expected to see Tokyo 2020 coordinate with partners towards a basic agreement of service levels, while they will install countermeasures for challenges caused by the postponement.
Countermeasures are likely to be a key area amid ongoing concern over the coronavirus pandemic’s possible impact on next year’s Games.
Bach said the IOC and Tokyo 2020 would adapt to the circumstances of the coronavirus crisis at the time of the Games.
He stressed that the health of participants was the top priority for organisers.
“This is a mammoth task because we cannot prepare Olympic Games as we are used to,” Bach said.
“In fact, we have to prepare for multiple scenarios of Olympic Games.
“We have to take all of this into account – what could happen, what may happen.
“We have established one principle, first of all.
“This is the top priority – the Olympic Games will respect and safeguard the health of all of the participants.
“From this principle arrives the different scenarios.
“We want to prepare these Games, adapt it to the circumstances of the crisis at the time, while ensuring for everybody the Olympic spirit, because this is what makes the Olympic Games so unique, uniting the entire world.
“This spirit has to be and will be reflected.
“All the adaptations we may have to make will not affect venues, sports or the athletes, so we can give the athletes the stage to shine that they deserve.”
Both Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori and Bach have expressed hope the Games will take place with spectators, although the possibility of the Olympics being held behind closed doors has not been ruled out.
Both the IOC and local organisers have promised to deliver a simplified version of the Games next year.
Tokyo 2020 has achieved one of its early tasks following the postponement, after it was announced last week that all 42 venues required to host the Games had been secured.
This followed agreements being reached for the Athletes’ Village and the Big Sight, the venue for the International Broadcasting Centre and Main Press Centre.
The competition schedule for the Games in 2021 will remain the same with the Olympics scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8 next year.
The IOC has also launched a #StrongerTogether campaign, which it says will recognise “the importance of solidarity and unity during these difficult times, acknowledging the power of sport, and in particular the Olympic Games, to bring people together”.
The Olympic Flame will lead the day’s activities, showing the “resilience and strength” of the athletes as they continue to prepare for the Games.
Robin Mitchell, the Acting President of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), also marked the milestone on Wednesday.
“Today, the world’s National Olympic Committees and their athletes mark one year to go to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, a Games that is set to be an unprecedented celebration of unity, solidarity and humanity,” he said.
“We look forward with hope to a Games that will not just showcase sport at its very best but also our collective resilience and determination to overcome our current challenges.
“There is no doubt that the challenges the world is facing are severe and that for many nations there remains a long road ahead.
“But during times like these it is more important than ever that we are united and look forward with purpose and optimism.
“Over the last few months we have seen some of the best of humanity and been reminded that there is more that unites us than divides us.
“We have witnessed how the Olympic values continue to connect us and that sport continues to play a critical role in our health and happiness.
“As a member of the medical community this role of sport in the protection of health is an area I am particularly focused on.
“We have faith in the IOC and its partners in Japan to do everything possible to deliver a safe, secure and sustainable Olympic Games in 2021.
“While there will be simplifications to the Games, as a member of the Coordination Commission, I have no doubt that Tokyo 2020 will deliver the perfect environment for NOCs and their athletes to compete.
“I will continue to work to ensure that the NOC voice is represented throughout the next year’s preparations.
“For the next year is just as much about our shared journey ahead, as it is about the destination.
“ANOC will continue to do everything possible to support NOCs during this journey, through sharing resources and facilitating the exchange of ideas and best practice.
“We know we are stronger together and it is by helping each other we can accelerate our recovery.
“One year from today, I hope we will have reached our destination and the athletes from the world’s 206 NOCs will be preparing to take part in an historic Opening Ceremony in Tokyo.
“But I know that the journey to get there will have connected us in so many ways and brought us together in solidarity, long before the Games are declared open.”
-insidethegames
Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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