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Monday, April 28, 2025

The time for talk is over

by

20141111

If the Olympic move­ment does not be­lieve deeply in what it is do­ing and what it stands for, then its slide in­to ir­rel­e­vance is on­ly a mat­ter of time.

The Olympic move­ment, and I dare say the rest of sport, are ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ing the re­lease of the 40 pro­posed rec­om­men­da­tions com­ing out of the year-long agen­da 2020 dis­cus­sions and con­sul­ta­tions fol­low­ing over 40,000 sub­mis­sions, the fi­nal stage of the re­form process start­ed by In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) pres­i­dent Thomas Bach fol­low­ing his elec­tion in 2013.

Calls for gov­er­nance re­form aren't lim­it­ed to the world of sport.

Around the world peo­ple are say­ing gov­ern­ments, once elect­ed, no longer work for the peo­ple–on­ly for the rich and pow­er­ful. In al­most every coun­try, peo­ple want ef­fec­tive, ef­fi­cient and ac­count­able gov­ern­ment. They want to avoid re­peat­ing the mis­takes of the past and elect gov­ern­ments to make their every­day life bet­ter.

The same can be said for sport in ad­di­tion to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of their re­spec­tive sport or or­gan­i­sa­tions. Add to that the use of sport for so­cial ob­jec­tives. Sport lead­ers al­so have to fo­cus on pro­vid­ing ath­letes with what they need to give them the best chance to be their best and to be the health­i­est and fittest when it mat­ters most.

It is there­fore go­ing to be very in­ter­est­ing to see what the IOC agen­da 2020 will pro­duce and how far-reach­ing and trans­for­ma­tive it is.

There are many is­sues that the Olympic move­ment must ad­dress.

These in­clude:

�2 How can the Olympic move­ment build on the foun­da­tions and make the IOC and the Olympic move­ment fit for pur­pose for a rapid­ly and con­stant­ly chang­ing world

�2 How can the IOC and the Olympic move­ment be more in­clu­sive?

�2 How can the IOC be more vi­brant, dy­nam­ic and rel­e­vant in its ef­forts to pro­pogate Olymp­ism, Olympic val­ues and the Olympic ideals to the youth and young peo­ple of to­day's world and a pro­jec­tion as to what will be re­quired in the near fu­ture.

The on­go­ing chal­lenges for all Olympic sport lead­ers con­tin­ue to be the enor­mous de­mands and changes.

The Olympic move­ment must en­sure that all stake­hold­ers who agree to the Olympic char­ter align with the char­ter. It can't be one rule for some and a dif­fer­ent rule for oth­ers.

There are too many peo­ple get­ting in­volved in the move­ment who don't seem to have any sin­cere in­ter­est in fur­ther­ing the pur­pose, mis­sion and val­ues of the Olympic move­ment.

Those who are seek­ing to be in the lead­er­ship of the Olympic move­ment need an in­creased knowl­edge and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the Olympic ideals. They need greater com­mit­ment to the Olympic goal of sport con­tribut­ing to build­ing a peace­ful and bet­ter world by ed­u­cat­ing youth through sport and en­thu­si­asm to pro­mote equal op­por­tu­ni­ty for fe­males in sport.

Agen­da 2020 will ad­dress some core is­sues in­clud­ing find­ing a way to im­prove the at­ti­tude of the Olympic move­ment about the rel­e­vance of the Olympic move­ment.

The truth be told is that when you sit around the ta­ble at Olympic move­ment meet­ings it is clear that not every­one shares the same be­lief sys­tem and com­mit­ment to­wards the Olympic val­ues and ideals.

The time for talk is over. Now is the time for de­ci­sions. If the Olympic move­ment and the IOC want to re­main in the dri­ver's seat de­ci­sive ac­tion is re­quired.

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee.


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