There is no high­er achieve­ment in the sport­ing world than to be an Olympic cham­pi­on. The five Olympic rings are a pow­er­ful glob­al brand. The Olympic Games is the largest event in the world. Where the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) lead oth­ers fol­low.

"If your are ca­pa­ble of trem­bling with in­dig­na­tion each time that an in­jus­tice is com­mit­ted any­where in the world, We are com­rades." – Che Gue­vara.

Ef­forts to close the lead­er­ship gap in glob­al Olympic sport isn't pro­gress­ing as it should be­cause many are en­joy­ing the trap­pings of the pa­tri­archy. My ques­tion to my Olympic col­leagues, is if not now when?

Last week, dur­ing the first PANAM Sports Women in Sport Con­fer­ence held in Pana­ma City, Pana­ma. The male al­lies pan­el com­prised of Camilio Perez Lopez Mor­eira, an IOC mem­ber and pres­i­dent of the Paraguay Olympic Com­mit­tee, Mario Moc­cia, pres­i­dent of the Ar­genti­na Olympic Com­mit­tee and Ren­zo Man­yari - pres­i­dent of Pe­ru Olympic Com­mit­tee, Ivar Sis­n­ie­ga - PANAM Sports sec­re­tary gen­er­al and my­self.

The mod­er­a­tor was pres­i­dent of the Pana­ma Olympic Com­mit­tee, Damaris Young. The dis­cus­sion piv­ot­ed to progress that has been made in re­spect of women in sport. It was ac­knowl­edged that by París 2024 the Olympic Games will have 50/50 par­tic­i­pa­tion by male and fe­male ath­letes. How­ev­er, peo­ple are un­com­fort­able when the light is shined on lead­er­ship. Don't rock that boat. Give cred­it for progress. But, here is my point, in the con­text of the con­tem­po­rary world every­thing is hap­pen­ing at warp speed. Why is it okay for gen­der-equal­i­ty, in­clu­sion and di­ver­si­ty to be at mo­lasses speed?

In its 128 years, the IOC has nev­er once elect­ed a woman as pres­i­dent. The IOC has had nine pres­i­dents–eight white Eu­ro­pean male and one white Amer­i­can male. It's a white male-run in­sti­tu­tion.

The lack of lead­er­ship in­clu­sion and di­ver­si­ty is a re­al­i­ty the IOC shares with Fi­fa, World Bank, the Unit­ed Na­tions sec­re­tary gen­er­al, Po­lit­i­cal par­ties and most sec­tors of busi­ness.

USA, Chi­na, Rus­sia, the Nether­lands, Bel­gium, Spain, Mex­i­co, Egypt and Saudia Ara­bia are some of the coun­tries that have nev­er elect­ed a woman leader.

Of the world's For­tune 500 com­pa­nies: 8.8 % have women CEOs – 91 % have male CEOs; one in three women are sub­ject­ed to phys­i­cal and sex­u­al vi­o­lence many are vic­tims of ín­ti­mate part­ner abuse against women; 87% of big cor­po­ra­tions have a wide gen­der pay gap.

In the Olympic Move­ment you have the IOC Ex­ec­u­tive Board, 206 Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (NOCs), five Con­ti­nen­tal Olympic As­so­ci­a­tions and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions on the Sum­mer and Win­ter Olympic Games pro­gramme. How many have ever elect­ed a woman pres­i­dent? The ques­tion can al­so be asked of World An­ti Dop­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WA­DA).

In 2021 of 198 speak­ers be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly–14 were women.

In the Unit­ed Na­tions sys­tem - 33 mul­ti­lat­er­als since 1945 have had 382 lead­ers–47 were women that's 12%.

The UN per­manant Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil–PR Chi­na, USA, Rus­sia, UK and France–do the nom­i­na­tion to the pow­er­ful po­si­tion of Unit­ed Na­tion Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al...There have been nine UN Sec­re­taries- Gen­er­al..The pho­tos are all male.

The World Bank has had 13 pres­i­dents. Not once has the World Bank had a woman leader.

In a cul­ture that is pa­tri­ar­chal com­bat­ing tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty re­quires we change the en­tire cul­ture from top down. Men must be al­lies who will: 1 - Stand up what­ev­er the price of do­ing so maybe and; 2 - Not be in­tim­i­dat­ed and made to sit down and shut up.

The ves­tiges and trap­pings of pa­tri­archy in the Olympic Move­ment must be re­moved.

We need bold­er think­ing and glob­al sys­tem change to dis­man­tle the shack­les of or­gan­ised in­jus­tices and in­equal­i­ties of pa­tri­archy, racism, colo­nial­ism, class and cap­i­tal­ist ex­ploita­tion.

"Have the courage to use your own mind, think your own thoughts and live your own life." – Im­manuel Kant.

Ed­i­tor’s Note: The views ex­pressed by the writer aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly those of any or­gan­i­sa­tion that he may be as­so­ci­at­ed with.