The insidethegames.biz Magazine Autumn Edition 2019

The insidethegames.biz Magazine The world’s leading source of independent news and information about the Olympic Movement.

Autumn Edition 2019

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In total, more than 480 women from 76 countries registered for participation in the World Championships.

Competitions will be held in two rings from October 3 to 10, the final and semifinal bouts will be held on October 12 and 13 in one ring.

The logo of the World Championships represented the symbol of Russia - the Bear wearing gloves.

The official Mascots were represented by four Bears Umnik, Lenivets, Malysh and Trener. For several months the Bears had promoted the tournament at major sports events, including SportAccord in Australia and International Boxing Day in Russia.

The 20th edition of the AIBA Menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s World Championships took place in the beautiful city of Ekaterinburg from September 8 to 21. It was the first time in the history of Russia that such an important event had been organised in the country. Competition took place in one of the largest cites in Russia. Ekaterinburg is located in the heart of the Eurasian continent, on the border of Europe and Asia and in the middle of the Ural Mountain Range.

In total, around 450 athletes from 87 countries competed in the most important event of their boxing careers during 12 days of competitive fights. The venue for the event was the Ekaterinburg EXPO arena (capacity 5000 seats) where we saw more than 400 outstanding fights. The opening ceremony took place in the Convention Centre on September 8 in the presence of Olympic Champions and World Champions Oleg Saitov, Alexey Tischchenko and Egor Mekhonsev, who were the faces of the Championships.

AIBA Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s World Boxing Championships is taking place from October 2 to 13 in the city of Ulan-Ude, Russia. The venue of the championships is the Sports and Fitness Complex.

In total, more than 480 women from 76 countries registered for participation in the World Championships.

Competitions will be held in two rings from October 3 to 10, the final and semifinal bouts will be held on October 12 and 13 in one ring.

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Contents

Published: October 2019 by Dunsar Media Company Limited Editor: Duncan Mackay Magazine Editor: Dan Palmer Managing Director: Sarah Bowron Design: Elliot Willis Willis Design Associates Pictures: Getty Images Staff headshots: Karen Kodish Print: www.csfprint.com Dunsar Media Company Limited Office Number 5 @ 8/9 Stratford Arcade, 75 High Street, Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes, MK11 1AY. Great Britain +44 1908 563300 contact@insidethegames.biz www.insidethegames.biz No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature without prior written permission of the publisher.

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Introduction

Duncan Mackay

Sportswashing

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Mike Rowbottom

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Seismic Shift David Owen

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Four More Years!

Mike Rowbottom

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Pole Position Liam Morgan

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The Heat is on Matthew Smith

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Keep Calm and Carry on Boxing Nancy Gillen

How Weightlifting Rescued Itself Brian Oliver

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Hatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the way to do it Mike Rowbottom

Data is published in good faith and is the best information possessed by Dunsar Media Company Limited at the stated date of publication. The publisher cannot accept any liability for errors or omissions, however caused. Errors brought to the attention of the publisher and verified to the satisfaction of the publisher will be corrected in future editions, if any. Š and Database Right 2019 Dunsar Media Company Limited All rights reserved.

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DUNCAN MACKAY EDITOR, INSIDETHEGAMES

F

or those of us who were alive to witness it, the collapse of the Berlin Wall was a seismic event.

On November 9, 1989, the world changed as a barrier which was a permanent fixture of many people’s lives came tumbling to the ground.

It is now approaching 30 years since that historic night, which not only transformed the global political picture, but also the shape of international sport.

Out of the rubble came a number of new nations all looking to make their mark at the Olympic Games.

Chief columnist David Owen has looked back on that period of upheaval and explored how sports governance adapted when the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville and Barcelona were looming large.

He spoke to former International Olympic Committee director general François Carrard, who played a pivotal role in the discussions, about a story which involved a number of characters including former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Six bidders were still in the race when the IOC selected Barcelona as the Summer Olympics host for 1992, while seven cities were on the start-line for the Winter Games vote which went the way of Albertville.

In those times of numerous interested parties it would have been hard to imagine the current trend which has seen the number of cities who wish to stage major sporting events dry up.

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Increasingly, governing bodies have been forced to look to countries with authoritarian regimes which have faced much criticism on the international stage for alleged human rights abuses.

This creates an interesting paradox. The countries hosting are keen for sport to take centre stage to distract from their critics, but at the same time welcoming the world can draw attention to what the critics are saying in the first place.

The term “sportswashing” has been coined to describe an apparent attempt by nations to wash away their bad news with the spectacle of top class international action.

It was first used when Azerbaijan’s capital Baku hosted the 2015 European Games and has been referenced several times since, in particular in relation to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Chief feature writer Mike Rowbottom has explored this phenomenon which, arguably, has been occurring as far back as 1936, when Hitler’s Nazi Germany hosted the Olympic Games in Berlin.

We have also used this edition of The insidethegames Magazine to feature two Presidents who are at key stages of their careers.

Britain’s Sebastian Coe is starting a second four-year term in charge of the International Association of Athletics Federations and his tenure so far cannot be described as being short of incident.

Since his initial election in 2015, the double Olympic gold medallist has had to deal with the Russian doping crisis, a massive legal case with Caster Semenya over female eligibility rules and the debate over athletes transferring allegiances.

Coe discusses all of these issues and more, and told Rowbottom he hopes these next four years will be “the fun bit” of his Presidency.

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Chief senior reporter Liam Morgan has spoken to Witold Bańka, who is due to take over from Sir Craig Reedie as President of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Poland’s former Sports Minister has promised “no mercy” for cheats, and it will be fascinating to see how he adapts to a role which is never far away from the sporting headlines and is guaranteed to include a full in-tray.

It would be remiss of us not to mention next year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, now less than a year away.

Matthew Smith has explored the issue which is on everyone’s lips - the rising heat in the Japanese capital and what can be done to cool down.

Weightlifting is a sport which will appear at the Games after enjoying something of a transformation.

Doping problems meant the threat of expulsion from the Olympic programme was very real but lots of hard work seems to have successfully rescued the sport from the brink of oblivion.

Brian Oliver finds out what has been done as the International Weightlifting Federation enters a brave new world.

Weightlifting, of course, is not the only sport to have faced a crisis after a period of turmoil at the International Boxing Association. Nancy Gillen found out, however, that for the athletes it is simply business as usual. insidethegames will be covering all of the important sporting decisions which matter in the coming months.

Enjoy the magazine.

Duncan Mackay Editor

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Sportswashing The world’s major sporting events are increasingly ending up in countries which are the subject of much international criticism.

Mike Rowbottom reports.

S

portswashing” is a phrase said to have been coined in 2015 to describe the staging of the first European Games in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku, and Formula One racing there the following year.

Since then it has found common usage in describing attempts by authoritarian Governments to improve the image of their countries by staging ambitious sporting events.

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The idea of sport as a political tool is ancient. Around 100BC, the Roman poet and satirist Juvenal was scathing about the philosophy underlying Rome’s provision of “bread and circuses”, which he maintained distracted them from civic duties.

Almost 200 years later, at the behest of the Emperor Vespasian, the Colosseum was built in the Italian capital. It staged all manner of entertainments including gladiatorial contests, public spectacles such as recreations of famous sea battles, animal hunts and classical dramas for crowds that averaged around 65,000 people.

For the Emperors of Rome, such entertainment and sporting spectacle was primarily aimed at their own population. But the development of sport over the last 150 years has offered a huge new range of possibilities for hosting nations to create not just internal, but external influence, with the

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prime examples being the modern Olympic Games and the football World Cup, first held in Uruguay in 1930.

In the modern era, one of the most noted examples of a sporting event held for overt political purposes was the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Once the Nazis came to power in 1933 the Games were seen as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the supreme might of Germany’s authority in a sporting and architectural context. The Führer, Adolf Hitler, ordered the construction of a stadium so toweringly huge that it was almost minatory.

Enduringly, however, those 1936 Olympic Games conjure the image of Jesse Owens, the black American sprinter and long jumper whose achievement in winning four gold medals defied the vision of the Games as a showpiece for the Nazi Party’s racist ideology.

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MIKE ROWBOTTOM CHIEF FEATURE WRITER, INSIDETHEGAMES Despite the racism of the Nazi regime, with its talk of “black auxiliaries”, Owens found the atmosphere in Berlin personally supportive for much of the time.

He was cheered by the crowd - "Yesseh Oh-vens, Yesseh Oh-vens" - and mobbed by autograph hunters.

He also received friendship and support from Germany’s tall, blue-eyed, blonde Aryan dream of a long jumper, Luz Long.

When Owens approached his third and final qualifying mark still needing to register a distance long enough to take him into the afternoon’s final, Long advised him to move his mark back to lessen the risk of overstepping on the take-off board again. Owens did so, duly qualified, and went on to win gold.

In such a way, human interactions can give value to events conceived with different aims and priorities. The experience of Owens is, in a way, an argument for having a sporting event in even the most unpromising or onerous of circumstances. The argument that such events can open different cultures up to each other is as undeniable as the fact

A stadium under construction in Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Photo: Getty Images

that, were there to be no such sporting event, no potentially beneficial interaction could take place.

The words spoken by South Africa’s President Nelson Mandela at the first Laureus World Sports Awards in 2000 resonate.

“Sport has the power to change the world,” he said. “It

Russia’s human rights record was called into question at last year’s World Cup. Photo: Getty Images

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has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.”

No matter the reason for the sporting gathering, or the geography, that truth can never be gainsaid.

Such gatherings bring about a mass of personal interactions between visitors and hosts that, while not politically significant, are potent in human terms.

Speaking personally, I will always remember with gratitude the young volunteer at the Baku European Games who, on one of the many sweltering days in the Azerbaijan capital, guided me around the city centre and onto the right Metro line as I sought to switch between venues.

Earlier this year at the Minsk European Games in Belarus another country whose record on human rights and freedom of speech has been strongly and widely criticised - I received similar help from a couple of

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teachers who were on their way to supervise pupils about to take part in the Closing Ceremony.

After joining me on the correct bus, they got off with me at the required stop and then took me across to the tram stop I needed to reach the Dinamo Stadium.

Of course, all this does not change Government policy, but who can say what the accumulated “butterfly effect” may be of such small encounters?

In recent times, the most sustained campaign to seek political capital out of staging big sporting events has occurred in Russia, whose President, Vladimir Putin, has overseen the bagging of all the main sporting trophies to be had, most notably the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The strategy behind this initiative is complex. In the case of the Sochi Games, where the overall cost rose to a dizzying

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$51 billion, there was an underlying plan to create a new Black Sea tourist area, primarily for home use.

As sporting events, both the Olympics and World Cup were hugely successful, although the home doping scandal which emerged in the wake of Sochi has had serious and ongoing consequences for Russian sport in terms of reputational damage.

Russia’s authoritarian regime, its lack of freedom of speech, its hostile attitude to LGBT rights all of these elements were rehearsed and discussed around the world ahead of the staging of these sporting spectaculars.

In response, the Russian hosts were obliged, at least during the staging of the events, to acknowledge and address some of the issues. For instance, by setting up official protest zones within the Olympic site.

Nobody believes or expects that staging a sporting event can transform the political outlook of a country. But such is the power of sport, to which

Vladimir Putin speaks at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. Photo: Getty Images

Mandela referred, that it is not always possible to quantify its beneficial effects.

Few nations have been so severely criticised for their lack of freedom than North Korea.

So, can their sporting cooperations in the last couple of years with South Korea -

Qatar remains a controversial choice as World Cup host. Photo: Getty Images

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despite the fact that both are technically still at war - fall into the category of sportswashing?

That hardly seems the appropriate description of the joint North and South taekwondo demonstrations that have taken place on both sides of the border, or the joint women’s ice hockey team that competed at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics.

The impetus for cooperation appears to have stalled more recently, with North Korean swimmers not turning up as hoped at this year’s FINA World Aquatics Championships in the South Korean city of Gwangju, something which left the meeting’s optimistic slogan “Dive Into Peace” looking pretty forlorn.

Yet what is clear, as the North Korean attitude shifts and re-shifts, is that sport is, as Mandela said, the way in which two “warring” countries have been able to find the common ground upon which to come together.

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No-one suggests that taekwondo demonstrations or swimming meetings will reform national policy. But sport at times such as this is the only meeting point, and as such is uniquely valuable.

The other basic beauty of sport is that it - largely speaking - provides a commonly agreed template within which disparate nations can line-up with each other, following rules that can be, broadly speaking, commonly understood and accepted.

Two other phrases float around the staging of sporting events by regimes that are seen by many as being authoritarian or even repressive. The first is “sphere of consensus”, a phrase first employed by US communication theorist Daniel Hallin in 1986 to describe one of the tendencies of journalists who reported on the Vietnam War, namely an implicit agreement to present a “party line”.

In the context of discussions about “sportswashing”,

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Jesse Owens became the most famous name of the 1936 Olympics despite Hitler’s efforts. Photo: Getty Images

it refers to the way that concerns over cultural and societal issues appear to vanish once the sport gets underway.

The argument here, clearly put by a piece on website The Conversation, is that this can “actually close down, temporarily, critical views of a Government”.

“Such sporting mega-events operate as a means to launder a national Government’s global image and reputation,” the article continues.

The second term is “soft power”, coined by US political scientist Joseph Nye, which refers to a means of reaching political objectives through the power of attraction, rather than military or economic force, including music, art and sport.

One of the most ambitious sequences of sports hosting is currently taking place in Saudi Arabia, whose regime has been widely criticised for its record on human rights and rights for women.

On December 7 this year, in a boxing bout being promoted as the Clash on the Dunes, Andy Ruiz Jr and Anthony Joshua will meet in Saudi Arabia in “the first-ever heavyweight world title fight to be held in the Middle East”.

Following Ruiz Jr’s shock knockout of Britain’s defending champion in New York, the interest in the rematch is huge.

“I’m expecting there to be incredible

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energy from the crowd and that gives you something extra in the ring, especially when you see the passion there is for sport in Saudi Arabia,” Joshua said.

The bout will be staged in the Diriyah district close to capital city Riyadh. It is home to At-Turaif, a UNESCO World Heritage site that stands as a symbol of Saudi history.

AIPS report that the rematch will be part of the Diriyah season hosted by the General Sports Authority of Saudi Arabia, which will also include the second Formula E Championship to be hosted in the Kingdom.

It will be the latest major sporting event to be staged by the GSA, which has brought WWE wrestling, the Italian Super Cup, European Tour golf and the World Boxing Super Series clash between Callum Smith and George Groves to the Kingdom.

Next February the country will also host the world’s richest horse race - The Saudi Cup - with $20 million in prize money.

“Under the auspices of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, the GSA’s mantra is ‘sports for all’ as it seeks to create opportunities for Saudis to engage with, and participate in, sports,” the AIPS report says.

“At a grassroots level boxing has increased in popularity as a host of gyms, including facilities for women, open their doors. From practically nothing in 2015 there are now approximately 50,000 Saudis participating in boxing.”

Belarus hosted the European Games this year. Photo: Getty Images

Prince Abdulaziz Bin Turki Al Faisal Al Saud, chairman of the GSA, added: “At heart Saudi Arabia is a nation of sports fans and both athletes and audiences can expect to be knocked out by the passionate reception this event will enjoy in the Kingdom.

“Sports will always be a key focus for our Government. We have talented sportsmen and women, engaged spectators and an ambitious vision to develop the sports sector to the highest levels.”

At this level, it seems clear that opening up to sporting events is having a beneficial effect on at least some levels of society in Saudi Arabia.

But to what extent is this sporting activity seeking, or succeeding, in distracting attention from criticisms levelled at some of the host country’s laws and attitudes? That is the question that can be asked of any country in such a position.

In many such cases, debate beforehand means the sporting event envisaged often

Saudi Arabia is increasingly hosting sport and has staged Formula E action. Picture. Photo: Getty Images

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The Baku European Games put the spotlight on Azerbaijan. Photo: Getty Images

becomes a new catalyst for examination and, in some cases, denigration of the host country’s record on such issues as human rights and freedom of speech. It is double-edged.

This line of thought has been well set out

by Simon Chadwick, a Professor of Sports Enterprise at Salford University in Britain, where he is also a member of the Centre for Sports Business.

In a piece written on August 24, 2018 in partnership with the China Soccer Observatory at the University of Nottingham, Chadwick begins by citing a number of sporting events being described as “sportswashing”. This includes the holding of the three opening stages of the Giro d’Italia in Israel to mark its 70th anniversary.

Mauro Vegni, the race director of the Giro d’Italia, had insisted “we do not mix sport with politics” and added that the race was “the Tour of Peace from Jerusalem to Rome”.

But it was a contentious decision given the continued criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian citizens in its disputed West Bank territory.

Chadwick argues that the term “sportswashing”, as he puts it, is “not entirely clear".

After citing two meanings - an imagebooster for authoritarian regimes, or a means of sidelining criticisms - he adds: www.facebook.com/insidethegames

“Such definitions are both presumptuous and troubling. In particular, they both imply that people readily (and instantaneously) forget about a nation’s misdemeanours and underpinning ideology simply because, for example, a group of cyclists spend little more than 10 hours riding around the country.

“It, therefore, remains largely unproven, and as such is conjecture, that there is a strong correlation or causal link between hosting a sporting event and people fundamentally changing their thoughts and behaviours with respect to a specific country."

Chadwick goes on to consider the “intent” behind staging events, and cites Qatar, which secured this year’s World Athletics Championships and will stage the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In so doing, in an effort to raise its global profile, Qatar has also found itself facing searching questions concerning financing, the treatment of immigrant construction workers and the risks of severe heat to the wellbeing of the sporting participants.

The Qatar Government has responded to some of these issues. In 2014, following recommendations by British law firm DLA Piper, the Qatar Foundation created the Migrant Workers Welfare Charter which applies minimum requirements with respect to the recruitment, living and working conditions, as well as the general treatment, of workers engaged in construction and other projects.

Chadwick continues: “Qatar also illustrates how some observers mistakenly conflate sportswashing and soft power, although distinctions between the two are admittedly blurred at times. Whereas sportswashing carries with it notions of cynicism and deceit, soft power is more widely accepted as a legitimate diplomatic strategy focused on attraction, appeal and accentuating a set of values with which others can engage.

“This implies that, rather than shutting down criticism, Qatar is seeking to shape opinions which is not sportswashing.”

With the World Cup three years away, it remains to be seen what the verdict will be on this question.

Saudi Arabia will host a World Heavyweight Championship boxing clash this year. Photo: Getty Images

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T F I H S C I M SEIS

The abrupt collapse of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago this autumn changed the face of Europe - and Olympic sport. David Owen reports.

O

n the night of November 9, 1989, 30 years ago, the gates along the 45-kilometre expanse of the Berlin Wall were flung open and the world changed.

“All the old certainties are gone,” proclaimed The Manchester Guardian Weekly on its front page, as ecstatic German youngsters chipped away at the hated barrier with hammers. “Europe seems to be a different place this week…the process under way simply sweeps aside the natural hesitations of history.”

Three decades on, and with the Europe that exultant night helped to bring into being now in danger of tearing itself apart, it is not entirely straightforward to convey why the breaching of the wall was such a seismic moment for those of us who lived through it, albeit from the other side of the English Channel.

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What you need to remember is our entire continent had spent 40 years cowering before the threat of a nuclear winter that might be unleashed on our territory by one global superpower or the other with Europe powerless to do very much to prevent it.

Sure, day-to-day life went on, much as today, with its family outings, pop concerts and sports fixtures. But this possible dystopian fate was always there, hovering just beyond the horizon. The Wall dividing the biggest city in divided Germany, one of the biggest countries in our divided continent, came to be the symbol par excellence of this so-called Cold War through which we were living.

The Wall was a fixture, a seemingly permanent fact of life for Europeans of my age group. It was erected in 1961, when I was about 16 months old. I could not remember a time when it had not been there.

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I had even seen it, touched it, tried to look through it during a visit to Berlin, West and East, in September 1983.

We had gone there out of a sense of adventure and for the Otto Dix paintings.

What I most remembered were dead-eyed border guards in the gloom of subway stations where the trains never stopped and phalanxes of identical Trabant motor-cars in municipal car parks. Many of these clunky metal and glass boxes were personalised with lavishly decorated gear-sticks in what seemed to constitute multiple tiny acts of individual defiance.

Just over six years later, hundred upon hundred of these Trabants were suddenly streaming over the border for a taste of the West’s forbidden delights. The speed of the collapse took your breath away.

It would appear it was not only us in the West who were taken by surprise at how fast the wheel of history turned. Former International Olympic Committee director general François Carrard told me about a dinner he was invited to in Moscow in October 1989, just before that tumultuous night when the Wall fell. The invitation was from the Soviet Minister of Sports.

“The East German Sports Minister was also there,” Carrard remembers. “At that time there was already a constant flood of East Germans leaving the country in their Trabi cars. It was quite surprising to see how many East Germans were driving away.

“I remember asking the East German Minister, ‘How do you explain this rush of people leaving? Is something happening politically?’ He said: ‘No. The young people are very bored because our political system is boring. They are looking for more fun, but that does not mean something important is happening.’

“I don’t think he was bluffing,” Carrard concludes. “I think he sincerely believed the system was not crumbling.”

The death throes of East European Communism heralded change for all of us, and not least for international sports administrators.

Within months of the Wall coming down, it was clear that the state which had come second in the Seoul 1988 Olympic medals table, East Germany - with 102 medals, 37 of them gold - was destined to be swallowed by the state which had come fifth in that medals table, West Germany.

In the event, this process took almost exactly a year. The famous, many would now www.facebook.com/insidethegames

say infamous, white-piped blue athletics vests of the German Democratic Republic were seen in competition for the last time at the 1990 European Championships in Split.

Of course, they topped the medals table by a country mile.

The ramifications of the winds of change sweeping the rest of Eastern Europe would turn out to be a lot more complicated for sports leaders. As David Miller explains in his Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC, “The political upheaval…in the years 1989-92 was to cause a multitude of headaches for the IOC”.

He goes on: “The tumbling of the Berlin Wall, of the Soviet Union and the demise of the conglomeration of Balkan states under the name of Yugoslavia would produce ultimately a flurry of 17 new national states seeking admission to the Olympic Games.

It became a logistical nightmare for the Organising Committees in Albertville [host of the 1992 Winter Olympics and Paralympics] and Barcelona [the 1992 Summer Games host].”

As director general from 1989 to 2003, Carrard, the eminent Swiss lawyer who remains a well-known figure in the Olympic capital Lausanne, was at the heart of the IOC’s response to this upheaval. If the path ahead was rarely straightforward, one can observe that the vast majority of the world’s best athletes were able, in the end, to be

François Carrard played a key role as the sporting map changed.

Photo: Getty Images

present for the Games of 1992 - no small thing given the relatively short length of time that had elapsed since the Olympic boycott era of 1976-84.

According to Carrard: “As director general of the IOC, my first vivid recollection is the return of the Baltic states."

He continues: “I was delegated to receive them when they visited us in Lausanne. They said, ‘We are now sovereign states. We were never suspended. Where are our seats on the Association of National Olympic Committees and other sports bodies?’

“I told them, ‘Please be patient. We are going to restructure.’ But at first they replied, ‘We are not patient. Where is the correspondence withdrawing our recognition?’ We never found anything.”

Carrard concludes: “At the time, Vitaly Smirnov was President of the Soviet National Olympic Committee. He was very helpful.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall had repercussions in the Olympic Movement. Photo: Getty Images

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DAVID OWEN CHIEF COLUMNIST, INSIDETHEGAMES Once the Baltic states understood that Smirnov - who was also an IOC Executive Board member from 1986-90 and an IOC vicepresident from 1990-94 - had been appointed, they started cooperating more readily.”

In the event, all three Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - won Olympic medals in their own right in Barcelona.

It is worth recalling that in this period, the IOC was also much preoccupied with South Africa, which was itself able to rejoin the Olympic Movement in time for Barcelona 1992, its first appearance at the Games since Rome 1960.

“At this time, I was also very busy with bringing South Africa back into the Olympic fold,” Carrard recalls. “I had the privilege of hosting [Nelson] Mandela personally. We took walks in the hills above Montreux.”

A key moment in the management of the consequences of the Soviet Union’s break-up for the Olympic Movement came in January 1992, just ahead of the Albertville Games, when IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch met Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow.

Alexander Ratner, the former editor and interpreter who is now secretary general of the International Shooting Sport Federation, set the scene for this meeting in a book about Samaranch called The Seventh President.

Ratner, who was Samaranch’s interpreter during visits to Moscow, wrote that to preserve unity, a decision had been taken to “transform the USSR NOC into a confederation of the

Lithuania playing in the Barcelona 1992 basketball tournament.

Photo: Getty Images

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Vitaly Scherbo won six Olympic gold medals for The Unified Team in Barcelona. Photo: Getty Images

republican NOCs with decisions to be taken by a majority of votes”.

“Thus,” he wrote, “the All-Russian Olympic Committee appeared on 1 December 1989.”

He went on: “Some time later it became quite evident that the huge empire was falling into pieces and one had to do something urgently otherwise Russia could find itself beyond the Olympic family. So, on December 19, 1991, the AROC Executive Board passed a decision to send an official appeal to the IOC asking for the recognition of the NOC of Russia. At the same time the AROC turned to the President, Boris Yeltsin, with a request to promote the decision of the question.”

Samaranch arrived in Moscow on January 24, 1992, just over two weeks before the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony. The meeting with Yeltsin took place the following day. Carrard remembers that it was a “gorgeous day of fresh snow and sunshine”, while Miller reports that the “cabinet table within the Kremlin Palace” was “decorated with freshly picked daffodils”.

Carrard goes on: “We had lunch with good wine and some vodka. When Yeltsin found out I was a French speaker, he said, ‘I have a gift for you’. He went off and brought back a copy of his memoirs in French, which he signed. I still have it.”

The IOC man recalls that “meetings at this time with Yeltsin were simple and friendly.

Samaranch had been Spanish Ambassador to the Soviet Union. The Russians always had @insidethegames

huge respect and trust for him. I think Samaranch basically said to Yeltsin, ‘We will find a solution, trust me’ and Yeltsin said ‘OK’. We talked more about general politics.

Yeltsin would tell us about the difficulties of his job, about how he had to try and explain to people what private enterprise was.”

In Miller’s succinct summary, the two men together “restructured one of the world’s two foremost Olympic nations, achieving last-minute stability for the two Games of 1992.”

Ratner describes the nub of the bargain struck in the following terms: “Yeltsin agreed to Russia’s participating in the Olympic Games of 1992 as part of the Unified team which included the athletes of 12 states… and Samaranch promised to recognise the new NOCs, including the NOC of Russia, right after the Games.”

Miller elaborates that the two men agreed to the “compromise formation of a unified team embracing nine of the 12 newly independent states of the USSR, with the shift of administrative power moving directly from the Soviet to the new Russian NOC”.

As a result of this, he goes on, “Albertville and Barcelona would not be oversubscribed for beds.

The new NOCs would gain recognition on acceptance of the provisional arrangements for 1992, which included use of the Olympic flag and anthem for team and individual medal winners, with the name and flag of the respective republic to be carried on the arm of the competitors’ uniform.”

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Unified Team players celebrate Olympic ice hockey gold at Albertville 1992. Photo: Getty Images

At Barcelona, the national flag of individual Unified team medal winners was raised and their national anthem, where appropriate, played.

Miller also stipulates that “Samaranch allowed the $1.5 million owed by Russian television for Games coverage to be deferred”, while sponsors such as Adidas “picked up much of the bill for sending the teams”. All in all, it sounds a typically canny arrangement, with all bases covered, put together with great care by a President who would have desperately wanted to make sure, in particular, that the Games in his home city of Barcelona were a success.

The assessment of Washington Post columnist Stephen Rosenfeld, published during the Albertville Games, is worth repeating at some length.

“The Unified Team,” he wrote, “represents a functional compromise devised to deal with a set of one-time circumstances. But it does seem to me remarkable that such an arrangement could be made and accepted with so little visible fuss and especially that

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the familiar heart-swelling usages of flag and anthem could be set aside…

“The painful travail of the ex-Soviets seems to be on everybody’s mind. It makes many of us feel that they deserve a medal or two for seeing their world explode and their sports machines disintegrate and for showing up, still in championship form, to compete.

“After a couple of tense generations in which individuals of many nationalities were continually asked, one way or another, what they could do for their country, it comes as a civilising relief to be able to answer: to compete ardently, to win if possible, but mainly to do one’s best and enjoy a decent respect. I think the Russians are leading the way.”

While Miller is not alone in mentioning potential accommodation issues that might have been caused had a large number of new teams been created so late in day, Carrard emphasises that “the risk that we might have to accommodate 15 teams instead of one had the Unified team not been created was

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not our main concern”.

“Our concern,” he says, “was about sport, athletes and competition. For instance, the Soviet ice hockey team was legendary. If we had had to break it up, it would have been

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin was involved in the discussions.

Photo: Getty Images

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The colours of East Germany used to be a regular fixture. Photo: Getty Images

Juan Antonio Samaranch led the IOC through the period of change.

Photo: Getty Images

unfair. All the players had been preparing together for the Games.”

Carrard also recalls having “problems with the media" because, when the USSR was disbanded, the Commonwealth of Independent States was created. For the media, it was simpler to say CIS instead of Unified Team, but this created uproar from some of the newly independent republics. www.facebook.com/insidethegames

Turning to the appallingly bellicose break-up of Yugoslavia, according to Miller, “intense negotiations by the IOC with the United Nations Security Council enabled competitors from the remnant Yugoslavia - Serbia/Montenegro - to compete as stateless individuals”.

Carrard’s recollection is that the UN “had imposed sanctions, including sports sanctions, for the first time”. He describes this as a “very dangerous precedent for us”, adding, “the sanctions had to be enforced by individual states”.

He goes on: “We had to find some sort of agreement with the Security Council. We had to be very creative. We devised the concept of the 'Independent Athletes' for Barcelona because the word 'Yugoslavia' was banned.

Spain was ordered to prevent any Yugoslavian team from entering, but they had not yet abolished recognition of Yugoslavia. So the Sports Minister could travel to Spain, but any team would not have been able to.”

Carrard adds: “The decision to use all-white uniforms was part of the negotiations with the UN and the former Yugoslav sports organisations. They also wanted to use their flag, not the Olympic flag. The discussion was @insidethegames

not simple. The white uniforms were bought in all haste at the last minute.”

Ratner’s text makes clear that Samaranch took pains to convey his gratitude for Russia’s understanding in helping the IOC to navigate a potentially dicey transitional period before sports bodies could restructure to fully reflect the brave new world emerging in Eastern Europe.

After Barcelona - where the Unified Team won a remarkable 45 gold, 38 silver and 29 bronze medals to top the medals table ahead of the United States and Germany, notwithstanding the historic changes that must have been shaking nearly all the team members’ lives - the IOC President returned to Moscow to attend a ceremony in honour of this achievement.

Ratner quotes the Spaniard as saying: “I believe Russia has sacrificed its interests on behalf of the interests of the other republics, when it agreed to go to Barcelona as part of the Unified team.”

In early 1993, Samaranch was in the Russian capital again. This time, he presented Yeltsin with the Olympic Order in gold.

An extraordinary episode in sport - and in history - was drawing to a close.

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Four More Years!

Sebastian Coe is just beginning his second term in charge of global athletics after an opening four years not lacking in drama.

Mike Rowbottom speaks to the Briton about Russia, corruption and Caster Semenya.

I

f Sebastian Coe’s tenure as President of the International Association of Athletics Federations - or World Athletics as it now becomes - were an 800 metres race, then he is just past the bell, having been re-elected for another four years.

Ten yards into his first lap he found he needed to clear a water jump and landed

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heavily in something that was not water.

Regaining his feet, he narrowly avoided a stray javelin. Then the elbowing began.

But as he moves towards the back straight once again, the double Olympic 1500m champion and multiple 800 and 1500m world record breaker insists that his stride is lengthening, and he is now free to race as he has always believed he can - this time in order to make his sport a winner.

Shortly after Coe had beaten his fellow IAAF vice-president Sergey Bubka to the position previously occupied by the man now under house arrest in Paris and facing corruption charges from French prosecutors, Lamine Diack, he announced: “There is no task I have ever been better prepared for, and no job I have ever wanted to do more.”

Within weeks, and for a period of a couple of years, Coe must have been reviewing every part of that statement as his calling became,

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in his own phrase, his “chunkiest challenge”.

In November 2015 the first of two independent reports by Dick Pound, founding President of the World Anti-Doping Agency, found a “deeply rooted culture of cheating” in Russian sport and “corruption and bribery practices at the highest levels of international athletics”.

That same month, virtually as soon as Coe had got his feet under the table, French police arrived at the IAAF offices in Monaco to follow up on allegations that had first emerged on the German TV channel ARD in 2014.

Coe soon faced questioning about how much he had known about what was going on behind the scenes, and for how long.

Much of the flak for the former Conservative Party MP and whip came from a British Parliamentary Committee, to which he was summoned in his first year as IAAF

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MIKE ROWBOTTOM CHIEF FEATURE WRITER, INSIDETHEGAMES President. Questions were posed to Coe about his apparent lack of inquisitiveness. He maintained that he had heard gossip, but had not seen evidence.

On January 14, 2016, the second part of Pound’s report alleged that Diack, his son Papa Massata and legal adviser Habib Cisse had been involved in blackmailing Russian athletes in order to supress their positive doping results.

When he found out about this, Coe was said by his associates to have turned white with shock.

At the second Pound press conference, which he attended voluntarily, he was chased by reporters and asked about how much he had known and if he was going to resign.

But Pound, never an easy man to predict, had concluded his statement by saying that Coe could not have been expected to know how bad things were, and he said there was “no-one better” to resolve the crisis.

Pound has since been proven correct.

Coe and his former ally Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee President, no longer see eye to eye on a range of topics, most notably the ban which the IAAF has steadfastly implemented upon the Russian Athletics Federation

The Russian doping scandal has dominated Sebastian Coe’s first four years as President. Photo: Getty Images

since November 2015, which will remain in place until it meets all the requirements to dissipate suspicion of continuing doping infractions.

One thing the two Presidents are agreed upon for their respective organisations, however, is the need, as they both put it, to change or face being changed.

The IAAF World Championships in Doha were the second at which Russian athletes were unable to compete in national colours. The IAAF Taskforce, chaired by Rune Andersen,

Tighter rules have been brought in on changing allegiances. Photo: Getty Images

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continues to hold the Russian federation to account pending analysis of a mass of data concerning athlete tests that has been belatedly released to investigators by the Moscow Laboratory.

The time bomb of endemic corruption and the scandal of Russian doping have been two of the big issues for Coe in his first term of office.

The third, again inherited, has been the taxing and sensitive matter concerning the status of female athletes with testosterone levels elevated beyond the usual female range through naturally occurring differences in sexual development.

The most notable, and celebrated, of these female athletes, world and Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya, was unable to defend her world title in Doha after the belated legal clearance of the IAAF’s regulation that DSD athletes wishing to compete in women’s events ranging from 400m to the mile must take

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medication in order to reduce their testosterone levels to under 5 nmol/L - double the normal female range of below 2 nmol/L. As he reviewed part one of his Presidency, Coe added one more big issue to his list - transfer of allegiance, which in recent years has seen an increasing number of athletes switching nationality.

The new IAAF rules require a minimum three-year waiting period before an athlete may transfer to represent another country, and the provision of evidence that those countries are offering full citizenship and associated rights. No athlete can transfer before the age of 20 or do so more than once.

“That can had been kicked down the road for far too long,” Coe told insidethegames. “I’m pleased we resolved that one so quickly. There are all sorts of reasons for athletes to transfer, exceptional circumstances such as war zones and cultural challenges. But there has to be a concept in the sport that the country you start your

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career with is probably the country you are going to end your career with.

“There were safeguarding issues involved in this too. I was very concerned that there were athletes in their teens who were sometimes being traded, and who were sometimes unaware of it.”

Reviewing his first four years, Coe concluded: “The first two-and-a-half of the first four years were really about focusing on all of the things that we had to change. So my overall instinct was, ‘let’s really secure the foundations’.

“The thing I was most pleased about was that actually we all grasped the really important concept, and that was that if we didn’t change we would be changed by people who would not have our best interests at heart.

“The IAAF Extraordinary Congress of 2016 brought through many changes, and crucially, of course, brought into being the Athletics Integrity Unit, which I think is an exemplar of very good practice which made the world recognise that we were very serious.

“One of the challenges I confronted was that within months of taking up stewardship of the

Sebastian Coe has not always seen eye to eye with IOC President Thomas Bach. Photo: Getty Images

sport, we had lost two major sponsors in Adidas and Nestlé, and the remaining ones, if they were there at all, were hanging by a thread.

“So my first responsibility was actually just to keep them on board, and the only way I could keep them on board was to be absolutely non-negotiable on the changes I was preparing to make.

I think they understood how serious I was about it and they then stayed on board.

“Since then those conversations have been much easier, they’ve all renewed, and we have very, very good ongoing discussions with other brands and sectors which will form the basis of a lot of the development over the next four years.”

Coe sees the establishment of the AIU as crucial in the restoration of the sport’s fortunes.

Sebastian Coe replaced Lamine Diack as IAAF President. Photo: Getty Images www.facebook.com/insidethegames

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“I think around the corruption issues, the changes that we made have been vital - for the first time we have an organisation where roles and responsibilities are absolutely clarion clear,” he said.

“People know exactly who is accountable for what. The AIU solidified that. It was very simple for me.

“It always makes me smile - halfway through the reform process, one of the biggest criticisms I got from people was ‘why would you want to be reducing your powers?

Why when you spent three or four years campaigning to get this, to then reduce your powers?’

“I said, ‘it’s not about reducing, it’s about putting them back into balance and doing the things which you should be doing and devolving sensibly to Executive Boards and Councils’.

“After Doha that’s going to look very different. We will have an Executive Board, we will have independent directors on that Executive Board, and nobody, including me, has stood for election in Doha that hasn’t been vetted. So our world is a very different place now to what it was four years ago.

“We made a judgement on the situation we confronted with Russia that I firmly believe was and still remains in the best interest of our sport. It grieves me, but we had to act.

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HSBC BWF World Tour Finals 2019 The by-invitation HSBC BWF World Tour Finals returns to its spiritual home in Guangzhou, China where players will be competing for a total prize pool of US$1.5 million.

The Finals feature the top eight players and pairs on the World Tour in the calendar year, with the current

world champions gaining automatic entry.

Guangzhou is a fitting location given badmintonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prominence in China and will stage the Finals until the end of 2021.

It caps off an exciting second year in the partnership between the

Badminton World Federation and its Principal Global Partner and title sponsor of the World Tour, HSBC. The restructured World Tour appeals to fans and players alike, with higher prize money, greater coverage on television and spectacular presentation.

TIANHE STADIUM, GUANGZHOU, CHINA 11 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 15 DECEMBER 2019

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Russian athletes are still only allowed to compete as neutrals. Photo: Getty Images

“Slowly but surely we have started to get change. The biggest piece of that is the work the AIU is doing around the data. I am told it is the equivalent of trying to wade your way through 51,000 CDs. “Change is taking place, but we do need to get to a resolution, so that athletes are coming back into a system which is clean and secure and, crucially, is seen to be clean and secure by the clean athletes elsewhere.”

On the topic of DSD athletes, he commented: “The Court of Arbitration for Sport found in our favour. In their words, they found our ruling was ‘necessary and appropriate’.

“I don’t look at this in terms of a country, or an individual, or a continent. It was a simple fundamental statement of the role and responsibility of an international federation. In our case it was around the two classifications we have - age and biology and that is exactly what we upheld.”

Coe’s assessment of the next four years in office is upbeat.

“If the first four years were about the time to change, which is what we called it, the next four years, I genuinely hope, are the fun bit,” the 62-year-old said. “It is actually about building the sport.

“But we could not have focused on any of that had we not got the basics. www.facebook.com/insidethegames

“The next four years is really about continuing to build the profile of the athletes and putting more money into their pockets, and that is why the changes we are making to the Diamond League are so crucial. It is our ambition to increase the prize money.

“We’ve got some simple principles. The season has to be more understandable. As for Diamond League meetings, you have to be able to put your hand on your heart and say they are the best in class. And that the athletes have got to be competing more often and they have to have more skin in the game.

“We will broaden the bandwidth of our commercial partnerships, into sectors that are really reflective of the 21st century and particularly how young people are viewing life.

“The other ongoing work streams are really all about creating greater understanding about the pace and rhythm of the season. It’s work around the co-ordinated calendar, the world ranking list, points, around the Diamond League changes, and further innovation around our World Championship events as well.”

On the topic of the Diamond League reorganisation, Coe adds: “The overwhelming challenge for our sport is to remain interesting and exciting in the lives of young @insidethegames

people when they already have so many other distractions.

"That’s why really understanding what the market is telling us, what spectators are saying to us, what young people are saying to us, what the broadcasters are saying to us, particularly around the Diamond League, is hugely important.

“Every one of those stakeholders we have spoken to have said we need to be slicker and the product needs to be better.”

The new-look Diamond League programme from next year will involve one rather than two finals - Zurich being the venue for 2020 and 2021 - and one of the preceding 12 meetings will drop out to accommodate the other perennial final host, Brussels.

The plan was also to reduce the number of events by four.

Coe said: “We are not telling Eugene or Oslo they can’t have a 5,000 metres or whatever it happens to be. We are just saying that in that window we have 90 minutes, and in that time we have to show the best of what we can. So there will be some slicing and dicing.”

Looking beyond the Diamond League, Coe identifies strategic gains in new relationships in the public sector.

“What I mean by that is the strength of our relationships with the political leadership around the world,” he said. “I never, ever go to a federation now without being quite demanding about also meeting with Sports Ministers, Education Ministers, and pretty much on most occasions, Prime Ministers and Presidents.

“Because it’s not the commercial partners that fund the infrastructure of our sport.

The Coca-Colas of this world don’t build stadiums.

“That’s really about having the kind of familiarity with the political structures of a country that allows you to make the case that this meets not just your own ambitions, but it also meets the economic, the social, the environmental, the health, the educational, the community-type strategy and physical activity agendas that all Governments are struggling with.

“Ours is the most participated sport in the world. It also has a range of solutions to what many politicians consider to be intractable problems.”

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Pole Position Witold Bańka has promised “no mercy” for cheats as he prepares to become WADA President, a job some see as a poisoned chalice.

Liam Morgan meets the Polish official.

A

s one mission ends, another begins for Poland’s Witold Bańka.

Shortly after leaving his position as Polish Sports Minister following the conclusion of his four-year term, the former athlete turned politician will be sworn in as the new President of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Bańka will be rubber-stamped as the successor to Sir Craig Reedie at the World Conference on Doping in Sport in his native Poland in November, before he officially takes up the Presidency - which some believe represents a poisoned chalice for the holder - on January 1.

The 35-year-old is the first to admit he will have little time for coronation or celebration and is all too aware that he will be faced with tackling numerous issues and obstacles right from the off.

“Ahead of us are multiple changes and a great number of challenges,” Bańka tells insidethegames.

“The fight against cheats in sport, and the fight for beautiful and clean sport, is a great responsibility and a great honour.

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Witold Bańka is taking on the top job at WADA. Photo: Getty Images

“I am aware of the huge task ahead of me.

I approach this challenge with great humility and a great sense of responsibility.”

When asked what he sees as the main targets, he said: “Improving WADA's image and communication with athletes, enhancing the anti-doping policy worldwide, establishing the solidarity fund and focusing the anti-doping policy on athletes. They have to be at its core.”

Throughout his responses, the role of athletes in anti-doping crops up with deliberate regularity.

A growing view is current and former competitors should be given a greater say in the decision-making process across the sporting spectrum, including at WADA. A working group within the WADA Athlete Committee is set to bring proposals for increased representation on the Executive Committee and Foundation Board - a

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process started last year and which those involved admit has been a slow-burner - to the table at meetings of the global watchdog’s ruling bodies in November.

It is hoped that athletes will get their wish, a view supported by the President-elect. “I want to, and I will, regularly meet with athletes whose voice in efforts aimed at clean sport is very important and should be strong,” Bańka said.

“It is for them that the anti-doping system has been established. Therefore, all major changes in the system should be discussed primarily with athletes.

“I believe that athletes should have a greater role in the WADA decision-making process and I am ready for further meetings, talks, and finally actions.”

This will be music to the ears of those who have been lobbying and campaigning for the athlete voice, but it will be easier said than

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done. There will also be those who feel Bańka is pandering to the popular, and that his in-tray will quickly be filled with more pressing issues.

One such topic will undoubtedly be the Russian scandal, reignited after Russia was accused of manipulating data it retrieved from the Moscow Laboratory, despite high-ranking officials, including International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, insisting a line had been drawn.

Should deliberate tampering be proven, Russia could be placed into sporting exile once again. The nation may even be banned from next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

WADA has identified 298 athletes with suspicious samples stemming from the laboratory, the facility at the heart of a scheme involving serial doping, sample swapping and the manipulation of the drug testing system. www.facebook.com/insidethegames

A total of 47 evidentiary packages have since been sent to International Federations, who are responsible for bringing those involved to justice and clearing those wrongly implicated.

This is far from a simple task for IFs and, at the time of writing, only two - the global governing bodies of weightlifting and biathlon - have sanctioned athletes as a direct result of the laboratory data and the McLaren Report.

The data manipulation allegations could throw into doubt some of the pending cases, although WADA insists the 47 built so far are unaffected.

WADA has warned IFs it will take legal action if IFs choose not to act and, should these cases not be dealt with effectively and if evidence of tampering is found, the response from WADA could define Bańka’s tenure as President, just as it did Sir Craig’s stint at the helm.

“Our common mission and goal should be to eliminate cheats from sport,” he said.

“I believe international organisations must strongly react to any hard evidence that will be provided by WADA with regard to potential dopers. We will expect sanctions against such athletes.”

The Russian scandal, and the way it was handled, exposed deep fractures and ruptures within the sports movement, most notably between the IOC and WADA. Bańka will almost certainly avoid the level of vitriol his predecessor was subjected to as politics, and reason, have since taken over.

Gone is the open hostility from the IOC towards WADA and Sir Craig. While it may still be going on in the background amid suggestions that the IOC wants the International Testing Agency to take over WADA, a thaw in relations has led to a decrease in public animosity.

Even the Institute of National Anti-Doping Organisations, whose repeated criticism was a thorn in the side of WADA and often provoked a response from its leadership, has softened its stance under new chairman Michael Ask.

Bańka unsurprisingly dismisses the view that he was cherry-picked to be the next WADA President by the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring of the IOC and has promised the hallowed quality of independence during his tenure, citing how he is stepping down as Sports Minister as an example.

“I hope for good cooperation also with the Olympic Movement,” Bańka said.

“All people of good faith, who care for the good of sport, should have a common goal: to clean sport of cheats. I want to believe that the idea of beautiful, clean, healthy sport can connect us.”

The Russian crisis has also damaged the reputation of WADA among athletes and officials, which Bańka will be tasked with repairing.

It is little wonder why he is targeting restoring the faith of athletes in anti-doping and its regulations as a key priority, especially given the outcry at recent developments. A case involving American sprinting star Christian Coleman - cleared of wrongdoing on a technicality, despite missing three drugs tests in a 12-month period - attracted particular attention from competitors and officials alike.

“The rules are the same for all athletes,” Bańka said. “If someone breaks them, and there is evidence of this happening, they must bear the consequences.

“However, this system requires constant improvements. Our role is to regain people’s confidence in WADA by doing a good job. We should listen to the voice of those who are at the core of sport and follow their advice.”

Among Bańka’s other principle aims when he assumes the WADA hotseat is the creation of an anti-doping solidarity fund, which he hopes will combat a long-term problem the organisation has faced - a lack of financial power.

The idea, according to Bańka, is to entice “private and public companies or sponsors”

Christian Coleman has been involved in a controversial whereabouts case. Photo: Getty Images

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Top Left: Biathlon is one of only two sports, alongside weightlifting, to sanction athletes due to Moscow Laboratory data and the McLaren Report. Photo: Getty Images Top Right: Sport has witnessed several drugs busts in recent months.

Photo: Getty Images Bottom Left: Witold Bańka was previously Polish Sports Minister.

Photo: Getty Images Bottom Right: Sir Craig Reedie is handing over the reigns to the Polish official. Photo: Getty Images

to part with their money to help support anti-doping. Should it come to fruition, the fund would be used to “assist in capacity building in less developed regions, to establish new partnership programmes between the NADOs, and to finance new educational projects”.

Others before him have failed with similar ideas but the Polish official is confident it can be achieved, potentially as early as the first year of his Presidency.

“I believe that WADA's budget for antidoping policy is insufficient,” he says. “We all must build a coalition for clean sport.

“I am deeply convinced that private and public companies or sponsors should engage in supporting anti-doping policy within their corporate social responsibility.

“If you are a sports sponsor, as a responsible company you want to sponsor clean sport.

“This will be one of my key tasks: to convince large players in the sports market to build a coalition for clean sport together.”

Enhanced cooperation with criminal authorities investigating doping and the www.facebook.com/insidethegames

distribution of banned substances is another target for Bańka.

While there have been several considerable drugs busts in sport in recent months, some, including the snaring of a doping ring at the Nordic Ski World Championships in Austria in February, have taken place without the direct involvement of WADA. Yes, WADA confirmed it had assisted with the investigation, but even the organisation would admit the raids would simply not have been conducted without the state authorities.

To its credit, WADA has had a more direct role in others, including one which smashed 17 organised crime groups involved in the trafficking of counterfeit medicines across Europe.

“Operations in which WADA and national anti-doping agencies cooperated with law enforcement agencies demonstrated how effective anti-doping policy can be pursued,” the incoming President said.

“I am ready for such cooperation and I believe it should be strengthened.

Unfortunately, doping technologies are innovative and thus we must be equally innovative in catching cheats.”

Taking on any new role, in sport or in politics, is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty.

The former 400 metres runner may be used to sprinting but knows the WADA Presidency is a marathon, and there will be those who will immediately question whether Bańka is the right man for the job, a feeling he has experienced before. @insidethegames

“Nearly four years ago, when I started working as Minister of Sport and Tourism, not many people gave me the chance to last that long,” he said.

“I have held the office of Sports Minister for the longest time in the history of Poland.

“My real experience and the real changes for the better that I have introduced in Poland are one of the reasons why my counterpart ministers from around the world have trusted me.

“My tenure at the Ministry has been defined by two words: humility and work.

As WADA President, I am going to take the same approach.

“I am ready to work hard. In Poland, I have proven many times that I am not afraid of hard decisions and do not avoid them. And that is how I see my role as President of WADA. “There is no mercy for cheats and manipulations in sports, and those decisions, if necessary, will be tough. The future of global sport depends on this.”

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31

The HEATis on Rising temperatures in Tokyo is the topic on everyone’s lips before next year’s Olympic Games. Matthew Smith explores plans to cool things down.

C

overing the International Judo Federation World Championships in Tokyo in August - which doubled as a test event for the 2020 Olympics - was by and large a pleasurable and exciting experience.

Tokyo 2020 organisers declared themselves “delighted” by the event, with its staging running smoothly for athletes and spectators.

From the perspective of the media, early hitches - a lack of internet and plug sockets in the press box on day one - were swiftly and effectively rectified.

One issue that remained from a journalist’s perspective, however, were large queues outside the press centre every day before it opened, just an hour before competition. This would not have been a major

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problem had it not been for the heat.

Even on the days with the earliest starts, which saw writers and photographers queueing at 8am, the temperature in degrees Celsius would reach the high 20s. On other days, when later starts to the programme meant waiting outside at noon, the 30 degree mark was topped. When combined with the humid climate of Tokyo, this made for an unpleasant experience.

While in most circumstances this should be dismissed as a petty gripe, it is a microcosm of what has become the most pressing issue facing the organisers of Tokyo 2020: the heat, and how to deal with it.

The Games will be held between July 24 and August 9 and, this year, there have been more than 50 heat-related deaths in July as

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temperatures in Japan approached 40 degrees Celsius.

In 2018, 95,137 people were admitted to hospital suffering from heatstroke between May and September, the largest figure since the Fire and Disaster Management Agency started surveys in 2008.

Volunteers with a bag of ice in Tokyo. Photo: Getty Images

Judo, which held its World Championships in the air-conditioned arena of the Nippon Budokan, escaped the problem of heat affecting the athletes, but it has been a serious issue for other sports.

At the World Junior Rowing Championships at the Sea Forest Waterway, which also served as the Olympic test event, the extreme heat caused problems for competitors who were all under the age of 18.

Temperatures reached around 34 degrees, with Japanese agency Kyodo News reporting that a British rower was unable to move following his race and had to be stretchered to the medical station. Other athletes were seen "staggering" during the medal ceremonies.

A member of medical staff said additional safety measures, including a dedicated cooling-off area, would be needed during the Olympics. Officials added that the ice baths and mist cooling system used during the Championships were not enough.

There are also concerns over the safety of spectators, as around half of the 2,000 seats at the venue were uncovered.

An executive member from the Japan Rowing Association said: "A roof is absolutely necessary, even if it is of the simplest design." www.facebook.com/insidethegames

Other test events also suffered problems.

The triathlon was shortened because of humid conditions, while cooling measures were tested at the beach volleyball.

Ideas trialled include misting sprays and air-conditioned tents, with 150 volunteers queueing to test the possible solutions at the beach volleyball venue of Shiokaze Park.

"We cannot control the climate, we must deal with it based on facts and reality," Tokyo 2020 Games delivery officer Hidemasa Nakamura said.

"Even creating shadows or mist, it's difficult to cover the entire area."

At the event a measure of heat stress in direct sunlight, called the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, hit a level considered dangerous for exercising outdoors.

Despite the open water swimming event at Odaiba Marine Park, part of the "Ready Steady Tokyo" series, starting at 7am, the temperature was already over 30 degrees Celsius.

"That was the warmest race I've ever done," three-time Olympic medallist Oussama Mellouli from Tunisia told AFP. "It felt good for the first two kilometres then I got super overheated.”

Triathlete Jonathan Brownlee cools off during the triathlon test event.

Photo: Getty Images

International Swimming Federation rules state athletes cannot race in open water swimming events when the water temperature is higher than 31 degrees Celsius.

As a result, organisers are looking at a range of possible ways to combat the heat, spanning from the easily implemented to other more “out of the box” ideas.

The beach volleyball test event featured cooling sprays for fans. Photo: Getty Images

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Temperatures have soared in the Japanese capital.

Photo: Getty Images

Artificial snow was sprayed over spectators at the canoe sprint test event, where many fans were sat in uncovered stands in direct sunlight.

"We haven't decided definitively that we will use this system next year for the Olympics, but we want to test it to see how effective it is," a Tokyo 2020 spokeswoman said.

Among the more mundane measures being considered is allowing fans to bring their own bottled water into venues under certain conditions, previously banned due to security concerns and sponsorship reasons.

Special road coatings are another plan put forward by organisers, with a substance that is expected to suppress temperature rises by as much as eight degrees due to be used.

"In 2015, a portion of Aoyama-dori was paved with a special coating that reflects infrared rays," Takeo Hirata, the Japanese Government's coordinator for the Games, wrote in a blog for the Japan Times.

"Toshihiko Seko, a 1984 Los Angeles Olympic marathon runner, and wheelchair marathoner Nobukazu Hanaoka participated in the test on an intensely hot and humid day.

"The results showed that the temperature of the specially coated road surface was 10 per cent lower than that of the uncoated surfaces and thus lightened the burden on athletes."

One of the most likely solutions to the heat issue is moving some events to earlier in the day.

The marathons will start at 6am, while FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu said the start time in the open water Olympic event could be moved even earlier.

"Could be 5am, could be 5:30am, can be 6am, can be 6:30am - depends on the water temperature,â&#x20AC;? he said.

"Working with a specialised company like we are going to do in Tokyo, we will have the right information to take the right decision."

Buildings along the marathon route have been requested to open their air-conditioned ground floors to spectators on event days, while trees along the route will not be cut back over the next year as organisers try to take advantage of every possible counter-measure, no matter how slight the possible advantage.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, meanwhile, will create a heatstroke prevention study.

The Japan Times reported the LDP group will hold detailed talks with weather experts and officials from ministries and agencies concerned, including the Environment Ministry and the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

The summer heat in Tokyo will be an issue for spectators and locals as well as athletes. Photo: Getty Images

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A woman uses an umbrella to take shelter from the searing Tokyo heat. Photo: Getty Images

Tokyo 2020 has also produced leaflets to advise tourists of heat-induced illnesses and symptoms, and how to react if they occur.

The International Association of Athletics Federations also conducted research into heat stress using pills at this year's World Championships in Doha.

Male and female 10,000 metre athletes, marathon runners and race-walkers provided information on how they acclimatise to heat and hydrate, and were monitored by thermal cameras while competing.

The athletes ingested a 1.7 gram electronic pill to record their core temperature and provide data for the IAAF. It is not only the welfare of those competing who organisers are having to worry about when it comes to the intense heat.

Officials have announced volunteers will work a maximum of one-hour shifts as they help guide spectators and tourists around the city. www.facebook.com/insidethegames

Other measures suggested by local government include providing wearable “umbrella hats” to volunteers to try and provide a measure of permanent shade, along with neck coolers and paper fans.

Such is the concern for spectators, rest spaces will be provided in the “last mile” between venues and stations, consisting of tents, fans, benches and free water.

It cannot therefore be argued that organisers have rested on their laurels and allowed an extremely problematic situation to take hold readily. However, it raises the question as to why extreme heat was allowed to become the dominant issue in the build-up to the Games in the first place.

It is a particularly baffling piece of scheduling given that it was avoided the last time Tokyo hosted the Olympics, in 1964.

The Games of the 18th Olympiad took place between October 10 and 24, a conscious decision to avoid the oppressive midsummer heat in the city, as well as the September typhoon season. @insidethegames

Organisers made the scheduling switch after athletes suffered in hot temperatures at Rome 1960, which started in August.

They also moved the subsequent Games, held in Mexico City in 1968, to October in order to take advantage of more clement conditions.

It raises the question of, having been able to adapt to hold a Tokyo Olympics at a more suitable time 55 years ago, why the foresight to avoid a similar problem was not present on this occasion.

As a result, athletes look set to have to compete in exhausting and dangerous conditions, while spectators face the inconvenience of having to watch events which start in the early hours of the morning.

In 2022, FIFA is set to host its first winter World Cup in Qatar due to the extremely hot summers in the host nation. The International Olympic Committee appear ready to hold its first midnight Games.

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IN G X O B N O Y R R A C D KEEP CALM AN

Yekaterinburg hosted this year’s Men’s World Championships. Photo: AIBA

It has been business as usual for the world’s best amateur fighters despite the chaos at the International Boxing Association. Nancy Gillen found out that amid turmoil, sport will always continue.

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he International Boxing Association has struggled to make positive headlines recently, with the embattled governing body seeming to be permanently stuck in a state of crisis.

After the formal resignation of controversial President Gafur Rakhimov in July, it is still unknown who will take hold of the reigns of the organisation, with Morocco’s Mohamed Moustahsane currently set to stay on as Interim

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President until March. The situation worsened for AIBA in June, when the International Olympic Committee stripped the governing body of its involvement in organising the boxing competition at Tokyo 2020.

This long-running political soap opera has been blaring on in the background for some time now, including during the run-up to the 2019 Men’s World Boxing Championships. It is likely that AIBA members would have been relieved to have the opportunity to press pause and focus on the sport itself for a moment. There was even the possibility of a few positive headlines for a change, if everything ran smoothly.

And indeed, there was an air of complete normality around the 5,000-seat Yekaterinburg-Expo, the venue which hosted a total of 357 bouts across a two-week period in September.

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It did not seem to be an issue that the competition no longer offered places at Tokyo 2020. The prospect of a world title was enough to entice the best of amateur boxing to Yekaterinburg, Olympic and defending champions alike.

Russian Boxing Federation secretary general Umar Kremlev agreed with this sentiment when I spoke to him before the gold-medal bouts began on the final day of competition.

“A lot of good boxers, a lot of Olympic champions and a lot of world champions, arrived in Yekaterinburg to take part in this competition,” he said.

“This shows that the boxing family is together and united. Boxing is one big family, and nobody can destroy that.”

The interview with Kremlev took place at the Hyatt Regency in the centre of Yekaterinburg, with the room I met him in offering a stunning

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NANCY GILLEN JUNIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES panoramic of the fourth-largest city in Russia.

Sochi was the original host of the competition, but the event was moved 1,700 miles northeast to Yekaterinburg on request of the Russian Boxing Federation. It proved to be an inspired choice, with the city developing something of a sporting identity of late.

It was one of the host cities for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, welcoming floods of football fans from all over the world.

After the boxing, it will host matches at the International Volleyball Federation Men’s World Championship in 2022, before welcoming the Summer Universiade in 2023.

It did seem as if a large number of Yekaterinburg’s inhabitants had bought tickets to see the boxing that evening, helped of course by the fact that three Russians were featuring in the finals. The spectators were rewarded when all three triumphed, the noise thunderous as each home favourite struck gold.

Andrei Zamkovoi was crowned the welterweight world champion, after overcoming England’s European and Commonwealth champion Pat McCormack.

Gleb Bakshi followed in his compatriot’s footsteps with

Boxers have carried on with the sport amid AIBA’s problems. Photo: Getty AIBA

victory in the middleweight division, defeating Eumir Marcial of the Philippines, while European heavyweight champion Muslim Gadzhimagomedov concluded a successful tournament for Russia with victory in his gold-medal bout against Julio Castillo of Ecuador.

The importance of boxers from the host nation reaching the latter stages of the competition was not lost on Kremlev, who was speaking before each one topped the podium.

Evander Holyfield, right, was a famous name present in Yekaterinburg. Photo: AIBA

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“For Russia, it is very important and a good result that three boxers are in the finals,” he said. “It encourages the crowds to come and makes the atmosphere better."

Despite Russia’s achievements, which also included a bronze medal, it was not enough to see the host country finish on top of the overall medals table.

Instead it was Uzbekistan who impressed most, cheered on by a small but exuberant group of fans who had made the journey from the former Soviet country.

Reigning Olympic champion Shakhobidin Zoirov added a flyweight world title to his achievements, easing past India's Amit Panghal, while Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov stunned Cuba’s Lázaro Álvarez to earn gold in the featherweight division. The final bout of the whole competition saw Bakhodir Jalolov dominate in his super heavyweight goldmedal bout against Kamshybek Kunkabayev of Kazakhstan.

Uzbekistan’s success was confirmed when the country topped the medals table with

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three golds, one silver and one bronze.

Kazakhstan also impressed, with Bekzad Nurdauletov triumphing in the light heavyweight division. Another four of their boxers went home with a bronze medal.

It was a disappointing two weeks for Cuba, who have dominated amateur boxing for so long. This dominance had been reflected in the seedings, with the number one boxer in each of the eight weight divisions hailing from the island.

Only light welterweight Andy Cruz could top the podium after unanimously defeating Keyshawn Davis of the United States.

It may have been to the detriment of Cuba, but their diminishing dominance resulted in a more entertaining tournament for everyone else.

One figure in boxing who enjoyed the competitive nature of the event was Roy Jones Jr, the American light middleweight Olympic silver medallist at Seoul 1988.

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Uzbekistan enjoyed a successful Championships. Photo: AIBA

Jones went on to become one of the most successful professional boxers of all time, earning multiple world titles in the middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions.

His silver in Seoul was a highly controversial defeat to home South Korean boxer Park Si-hun, which is widely considered as an injustice.

“There has been a rise in the standard across all the countries and there have been more boxers that can compete with the Cubans,” he said. “I have been particularly impressed with the boxers from Uzbekistan and Mongolia, who have really surprised me.

“It is good to see boxers from different countries become competitive and challenge for medals when they were not doing so before.

“It has been a very entertaining competition.”

There was even a glimmer of hope for Jones’ home nation, with the US coming close to having their first amateur world champion since Raushee Warren and Demetrius Andrade in 2007. Back then, both boxers triumphed in front of a partisan crowd in Chicago, but Davis nearly did it with little support here.

At just 20-years-old, Davis is a glimmer of hope for American amateur boxing.

Expressing his support for the young talent and his countryman was Evander Holyfield,

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another amateur-turned-professional success story.

Holyfield earned light heavyweight bronze at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics, before going on to become the only professional boxer to win the heavyweight world title on four separate occasions.

“Amateur boxing has been going downhill in America for a long time,” he said.

“With Davis, it will just take time. If he has it in him, it will just take a little bit of time until he can reach the top.

“It is good news for boxing in the US and it

is good to see him reach a final.”

Holyfield also took the time to convey how impressed he was with the execution of the World Championships.

“Everything has been very well organised, and everyone here has worked very hard to make sure this has happened,” he said.

“The bouts have been of a very high standard, as it always is in amateur boxing.

“I am very impressed with how it has been run.”

While the event was well-organised and ran well, there was one incident which caused controversy.

It centred around a super heavyweight quarter-final involving Russia’s Maksim Babanin and England’s Commonwealth Games champion Frazer Clarke.

Clarke was awarded a 3-2 victory, but the Russian Boxing Federation filed a successful protest and the result was overturned, sending Babanin into the semi-finals.

GB Boxing, whose training programme Clarke is a part of, claimed it was not given adequate detail on the decision to reverse the score. It subsequently called for greater openness and transparency in boxing.

The ability to protest the judge's decision is something which AIBA has only just introduced and was not possible at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Although Clarke and the British team were unhappy with the outcome, Kremlev saw the introduction of the rule as a positive move.

Good crowds watched Russian boxers compete for success. Photo: AIBA

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The Championships allowed sport to do the talking for a change. Photo: AIBA

“It is very good that in AIBA rules, there is now a point about protest,” he said.

“If something happened in the fight with the judge’s decision, you can show a yellow card to the referee after the fight and file an official protest. If the judges’ decision has not been good, then other judges watch the fight and can change the decision.

“All teams can do this. This is very good, and this helps us with clean boxing.

“It happened here in the quarter-finals with the Russian boxer. They filed a protest and then after that the result changed.

“It shows the whole boxing world that this rule works and that if judges make a bad decision, this can be changed.”

Some parties may disagree with Kremlev’s view on the situation, but it was the only occasion which seemed to create any kind of controversy across the whole two weeks.

In Kremlev’s eyes, then, the World Championships were a success and, indeed, it was a slick

operation from beginning to end, with entertaining and competitive bouts and eight deserving world champions.

It also did offer, if only for two weeks, a respite from the negative stories swirling around boxing’s governing body. Instead, the sport did the talking.

AIBA will hope for the same again at the Women’s World Championships, taking place from October 3 to 13 in another Russian city, Ulan-Ude. It will

provide yet another opportunity to focus on the boxing itself rather than the politics in the background.

Kremlev was quick to reassure that efforts are also still being made to improve AIBA’s situation as the sport takes place. He seemed confident that the governing body would be able to resolve its issues.

“A lot of people now speak badly about AIBA but I can promise that AIBA has a very big

Russia won a hat-trick of gold medals on home soil. Photo: AIBA

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and very bright future,” he said.

“I will do everything to make AIBA better.

“We have a lot of changes.

Next year, we will be back to the Olympic family but there will be a lot of changes and a lot of new ways to develop boxing.”

His parting words to me, as we were standing up to go and watch the final eight bouts of the World Championships, showed how important the timing of the competition really was to AIBA. “Boxers always go to the fight and stay together,” he said.

“Here, boxers have shown two things.

“They are here to represent their own country and to show the world that they are here with AIBA and that boxing is one family and they are together.

“AIBA is the home of boxing.

The international home of the boxing.”

Indeed, the governing body has proved that even though things may not be perfect in the background, the sport itself can carry on as normal.

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How

weightlifting rescued itself

Weightlifting was on the brink of Olympic elimination but its work to tackle its doping problem has now won plaudits from the IOC. Brian Oliver reports.

W

hen the International Olympic Committee put weightlifting’s place on the Games schedule under threat on June 9, 2017, there were many within the sport who feared the

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worst, with good reason.

IOC President Thomas Bach said weightlifting had a “massive doping problem” and since then, as if to prove it, Uzbekistan’s Ruslan Nurudinov, the Ukrainian Oleksiy Torokhtiy, and Sopita Tanasan and Sukanya Srisurat from Thailand have been among those who tested positive.

All four are Olympic champions and another, Colombian Oscar Figueroa, was briefly barred from competing for failing to alert testers of his whereabouts.

In August, there was news of suspensions for 12 Russian lifters, for historic doping violations based on information from the World Anti-Doping Agency rather than positive tests, and an audacious failed attempt by Thailand to overturn its self-

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imposed ban for multiple doping offences.

Since Bach’s words of warning two years ago, when the sport was effectively put on probation, there have been more than 80 doping violations by international weightlifters from all over the world, some of them second or even third offences by serial dopers.

While the International Weightlifting Federation has been catching cheats, within the same time span it excluded about 200 athletes from various competitions for failing to update their whereabouts information that is so important to out-of-competition testers.

Thailand voluntarily withdrew from international competition after nine of its 2018 IWF World Championships team tested positive, three of them gold medallists and two Olympic champions.

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Attila Adamfi has been instrumental in the sport’s drive for change.

Photo: Getty Images

Turkmenistan, the World Championships host nation, appointed a suspended doper as a coach; Ilya Ilyin, twice disqualified from first place at the Olympic Games for doping, was allowed to compete again for Kazakhstan after winning a legal challenge on a technicality; Lin Tzu-chi, a former world record holder from Chinese Taipei was banned for eight years when WADA challenged a punishment it considered too lenient; and the number of retrospective weightlifting positives from Beijing 2008 and London 2012, revealed by IOC retests, rose to 55.

Yet, despite all this and the potentially damaging publicity that goes with it, weightlifting is in a far better place now than it was when the IOC put it on probation just over two years ago.

There is much work yet to be done, and the retesting of samples from Rio 2016, whenever it happens, could lead to more damaging headlines.

But the threat of expulsion from the Olympic Games has been lifted, legal challenges from nations that cannot send full teams to Tokyo 2020 have been seen off or dropped, the new Olympic qualifying system is a huge success, and more nations are winning medals.

The IOC is impressed.

Cheating is riskier than ever before and policing is tougher, as shown by the Russian suspensions, which led Tamás Aján, President of the IWF, to say: “While the IWF has done so much to begin a bright new chapter for our sport, we will also do what we can to pursue historical cases of doping.”

Thailand’s attempted U-turn was swiftly blocked, and organisers were confident last month’s World Championships in Pattaya would be the cleanest for many, many years.

How did that happen?

With forward planning and brave decisionmaking, through a strong relationship with the IOC, a complete overhaul of the Olympic qualifying system, a new partnership with the www.facebook.com/insidethegames

International Testing Agency, advances in testing science and, perhaps above all, through turning to “outsiders” for help, to a group of people who have never worked in weightlifting and, in most cases, never so much as lifted a barbell.

Among them are Richard Young, a heavyweight American lawyer who represented the US Anti-Doping Agency in high-profile cases against Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones and others; Hans Geyer, deputy head of the Institute of Biochemistry at Cologne

IOC sport director Kit McConnell and medical director Richard Budgett.

On the same day, May 30, the IWF sent a letter to Bach outlining the proposed measures to be taken for Rio 2016, which included an outright ban for Bulgaria.

After the publication of the McLaren Report in July, Russia, too, would be banned outright.

Both those nations failed with appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with the Russian case being heard in Rio only five days before competition started.

Thailand could not compete at their home World Championships because of their doping record. Photo: Getty Images

University’s Centre for Preventive Doping Research; Billy Gannon, manager for international client services at the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport; Kate Mittelstadt, director of anti-doping for Ironman; and Andrea Gotzmann, President of the German National Anti-Doping Agency.

Along with many more experts with similar high-profile backgrounds, they sat on various commissions and monitoring groups created by the IWF during a period when weightlifting underwent the biggest makeover in its modern history.

One of the sport’s senior figures called 2016 “the worst year ever” for weightlifting, but it was during that year that the recovery started, long before the IOC’s threat of Olympic exile was announced.

“This journey actually started in 2016 when the IOC made the reanalysis of the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games samples,” said Attila Adamfi, director general of the IWF. The IWF received a letter from the IOC on May 26, 2016 about the early retests, and four days later Adamfi went to Lausanne, with anti-doping chair Patrick Schamasch, to meet @insidethegames

There were reduced quota places in Rio for Belarus, Romania, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, North Korea and Moldova, plus an increase in testing and enforced entourage registration.

“I believe the IWF was the only International Federation with a special anti-doping policy for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games,” said Adamfi.

Another important pre-Rio moment came in June 2016, when the IWF Congress was held in Georgia.

There was news of doping violations involving 115 nations in the previous year, and a report about those IOC retests from Beijing and London.

The Executive Board voted unanimously to punish any nation with three or more positives in the IOC retests with a one-year ban - the famous “Tbilisi decision”.

“From all of this, I hope it is clear that the IWF was already at the forefront of the anti-doping fight, before the IOC Executive Board decision of 2017,” said Adamfi.

“The IWF had not waited for the IOC’s reanalysis and was already committed to

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Former world record holder Lin Tzu-chi is among high-profile failures. Photo: Getty Images

significant steps in protecting clean sport.”

In 2017, Bach’s “massive problem” statement came less than two weeks after a tense IWF election in Bangkok, Thailand.

In setting out his campaign to become President of the IWF, Antonio Urso, head of the European Weightlifting Federation and mastermind of a notable, and “clean”, improvement in Italy’s performances, said weightlifting had just endured “the worst year in its history”.

It became personal when he said Aján, the incumbent who had been vice-president or President of the IWF since the 1970s, was “the Sepp Blatter of weightlifting”.

Aján, who has been a member or honorary member of the IOC throughout this century and has sat on IOC Commissions since the 1980s, won the election by 25 votes.

Since then the IWF has made a number of significant changes. It has adopted a new

IWF President Tamás Aján has been in charge during weightlifting’s greatest battle. Photo: Getty Images

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Olympic qualifying system; signed over its anti-doping programme in a partnership with the ITA; turned to independent advisers from outside the sport; adopted new bodyweight categories that produce new, hopefully untainted, world records; and come down hard on past offenders - which has led to a lot of time spent in courtrooms.

As a result, weightlifting’s credibility rating within the Olympic Movement has improved to such an extent that it has been held up as a role model by Bach himself.

What the level of progress would have been under a different leader is impossible to say, and nobody doubts that there is much more to be done or that the IWF could have been tougher on doping in decades past, but Aján has used his IOC connections to great effect to oversee a remarkable turnaround.

It is all the more remarkable given the make-up of the new IWF Executive Board after that 2017 election.

Long-standing members with decades of experience paid the price for backing Urso, including the outspoken anti-doping campaigner Sam Coffa from Australia, Christian Baumgartner from Germany, Moira Lassen, the Canadian head of the Women’s Commission, and China’s IWF vice-president Ma Wenguang.

Seven of the current Board’s 21 members are from nations with a doping past, all of whom will be sending reduced teams to Tokyo 2020 because of new policies which they themselves approved.

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Executive Board, Kazakhstan and Russia, took legal action against the IWF, as did Belarus: none were successful.

There may have been arguments along the way, but Adamfi praises the Executive Board for its “brave decisions and continuous support”.

That support was crucial as soon as the IOC made its pronouncement, in Lausanne, that weightlifting must put its house in order.

The IOC also announced a reduction in overall quota places for the sport, down by 64 to 196, with seven bodyweight categories each for men and women at Tokyo 2020.

Fortunately for the IWF, an Executive Board meeting was scheduled in Tokyo for June 13 and 14, only four days later - and it was here that the idea of creating two new Commissions, made up of external experts, was adopted.

At the outset the Commissions had no name and no members, but the idea was put in place, by Adamfi, for one of them to focus on new bodyweight categories, both for the Olympic Games and other IWF events, and the other on anti-doping.

They eventually became known as the Sport Programme Commission and the Clean Sport Commission and the significance of their input into developments over the next two years cannot be overstated.

Expertise came most notably from Germany, Canada and the United States, from scientists and administrators at the forefront of anti-doping, lawyers and specialists in sporting ethics.

All of them played their part in helping weightlifting to improve its standing within the Olympic Movement but none more so than Matthew Curtain, the man who had first developed an individual qualifying system for weightlifting.

“Our success was a united team effort,” said Adamfi. “It would be very long to list all the individuals involved in the Sport Programme Commission, Clean Sport Commission and so on.

“However, I would like to highlight one colleague, Matthew Curtain, whose contribution, especially to the Olympic qualification system, was unique.”

Curtain had been involved in the sport for many years, as a lifter for Australia and then in other roles, including competition manager at London 2012, before he became director of sport and international relations at the Commonwealth Games Federation.

He developed an individual qualifying system for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold

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Coast, Australia, which was used as the basis for a new IWF system that immediately gained favour from the IOC. Athletes who want to compete in Tokyo are compelled to enter six competitions in 18 months, which makes it all but impossible for anyone to dope without being caught.

The IOC also showed strong support for the Tbilisi decision, which was enforced in September 2017 after months of delays, and was more than happy to see past offenders punished.

Besides two face-to-face meetings between Aján and Bach in July 2017 and July 2018, there have been many, many more meetings in the past two years, all of which have helped the IWF incrementally clean up the sport and its own image.

Adamfi has met McConnell and his team more than 20 times.

“I went to see them almost every month,” he said. “We had a continuous coordination and partnership with the IOC, who supported our approach all the way.

“The relationship with the IOC has always been proactive and encouraging - I would proudly describe it as a partnership.

“The IOC stressed its support for the new Olympic qualifying programme at an important meeting in August last year.

“We would like to repeat our special thanks to Kit McConnell, and to Niccolo Campriani, strategic projects manager, for their continuous constructive, dedicated and professional cooperation and partnership.”

Ursula Garza Papandrea, head of the IWF Women’s Commission, said the IOC made it clear to the Executive Board that “there needs to be consensus of support for

these new measures”.

It was not always straightforward at Board meetings, said Papandrea, President of USA Weightlifting, who has sat on the Executive Board throughout the period of change.

“The new policies were voted in unanimously but that doesn’t mean there was no dissent,” she said.

“The pressure from the IOC was enough that everyone understood that the measures that had to be taken were going to be painful for some.

“When the Commissions were presented it seemed a smart way to handle the issue without having to complicate it with politics.

“The people on the Commissions were such high-profile names in the Olympic Movement there was no pushback on who was going to be involved, there was no ‘this guy is biased’.

“Once we started getting the product of the Commissions, and the Olympic qualifying programme was outlined, there began to be some negative sentiment about the impact on certain countries, and how some members would have to explain to their own federations that they were going to have limited quotas for Tokyo, and they were sitting on the body that made this decision.

“The penalised countries were not happy with the pressure from the IOC, but most understood the necessity of focusing on the future of the sport rather than their own country’s interests.

“When the impact of decisions started to have an effect, there were a lot of questions about why we are going so far back [counting offences from 2008].

“Some wanted to wipe the slate clean, or said they were being punished twice, and we had to

Ilya Ilyin of Kazakhstan has been stripped of two Olympic gold medals. Photo: Getty Images

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explain that it was the history of the offences that needed to be addressed.

“At times they were vocal, which is understandable, and it caused some splits in groups that used to have a common view - it started to create fissures.

“But why fight against the obvious?

“Either we’re going to compete clean or we’re not going to be in the Olympics.”

During the “clean-up” period of 26 months since the IOC’s 2017 statement, there have been five meetings of the two new Commissions, and new policies have been ratified at eight IWF Executive Board gatherings and five Congresses.

There have been six key dates in the new partnership with the ITA since last November, involving the takeover of various aspects of the anti-doping programme, culminating last month when the ITA took control of in-competition testing at the World Championships.

March 2019 was a momentous month in the process.

First, Thailand voluntarily withdrew from international competition because of its doping problems.

Later, in the same week, Kazakhstan dropped its contentious CAS complaint about the fairness of the new Olympic qualifying system, and the IOC announced that weightlifting’s place at Paris 2024 was guaranteed, provided the IWF completed the formalities of its partnership with the ITA. Also in March, a name to remember.

Yessenkeldi Sapi made six good lifts to win the 81 kilograms gold for Kazakhstan at the Youth World Championships in Las Vegas.

A CAS statement relating to that dropped Kazakhstan case praised the national federation for its work in cleaning up the sport, so perhaps Sapi will be the first of the next generation of young Kazakh lifters in weightlifting’s new era.

Four separate reports were presented to the IOC before, in May this year, the ITA partnership was signed off and the “conditional” status of weightlifting at Paris 2024 was officially removed by the IOC. The first IWF report had been submitted in December 2017, so it took a while, but there was no party at the Budapest headquarters of the IWF when clearance was given three months ago.

“No celebration was held but obviously the positive feedback and support during the whole journey encouraged us and the many congratulations recently received confirmed that our efforts, meetings, discussions, constructive debates, sleepless nights, and

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BRIAN OLIVER COLUMNIST, INSIDETHEGAMES

Weightlifting can now look ahead to Tokyo 2020 with more positivity. Photo: Getty Images

extensive travels were all worth it, to elevate our sport to a new level,” said Adamfi.

“While we were naturally not happy that the final confirmation took some time, the IWF was always confident it would meet the challenges set.

“Having the IOC President speak in front of other IFs and giving weightlifting’s Olympic qualification system as an example of what to do right [at SportAccord 2018] was very encouraging.

“Like our athletes, we will keep pushing hard until Tokyo 2020 and beyond, and we may enjoy a moment to look back after a successful competition there.”

If anybody deserves special praise for weightlifting’s recovery, said Papandrea, it is Adamfi.

“He crosses boundaries in working with the Commissions and then presenting their decisions to us,” she said.

“He understands what can and can’t be done, the needs of the weightlifting community.

“His role is really pivotal in getting the Board not just to agree, but to carry through on those decisions.

“We’re dependent on him.”

Adamfi said he was “honoured and privileged to lead this process under Dr Tamás Aján’s and the Executive Board’s guidance”.

Papandrea also had a word of warning about the future, and stressed the importance of keeping the Commissions in place after Tokyo 2020.

“It would be a mistake to abolish them quickly,” she said.

“Any group that is independent of us that the IOC realises is more objective, and our willingness to maintain those groups, shows an expression of a desire to continue to clean up the sport.

“If the Commissions keep working, it shows we are not worried about independent bodies having input to our anti-doping policies.

“We can’t rely on NOCs and NADOs to continue to police themselves.

“Maybe one of the

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Commissions can make suggestions of how we can continue to create a clean environment until the start of the next qualifying period - or maybe you do something that makes you eligible for that next qualifying period.

“Once you let up, that’s the moment when things start to revert.

“If the Executive Board makes any decisions that can be interpreted as lenient towards doping, they will certainly endanger our Olympic status.

“Although the sport has turned a corner, the leaders are aware they remain under the watchful eye of the IOC. “The sport has abated the immediate threat, but the goal must be to become a beacon for those other sports that have doping problems to deal with.”

Adamfi said the overhaul of weightlifting would continue.

“Ensuring 2024 Olympic Games participation is not a goal, it is just a tool to achieve our broader objectives, a

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milestone in our long-term plans. We do not stop, we continue our efforts,” he said.

“There was a united team effort behind the success, an inclusive approach and wide involvement of our stakeholders and independent experts.

“The IWF looked beyond a set of straightforward measures, towards a combination that added up to sustainable culture change. Our approach was always much broader than what was requested by the IOC. “I considered the IOC decision as a possibility given to the IWF, a trigger to make and lead changes, not to follow and be changed. This was the opportunity to relaunch the sport to a certain extent.

“Even if in the short term our bold approach might reveal more positive cases, we believe every case delivers a message that if they cheat, dopers will be caught.

“It all serves the long-term objective of cultural change aimed at ensuring a bright and sustainable future for our sport.”

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MIKE ROWBOTTOM CHIEF FEATURE WRITER, INSIDETHEGAMES

Hat’s the way to do it Mutaz Essa Barshim might have written himself into history in Doha.

Or he might not have.

But one thing is for certain…

B

y the time you’re reading this, Qatar’s stellar high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim has/has not enjoyed success at his home IAAF World Championships in Doha. I think that sentence covers all the options, although of course it’s a dodgy business trying to predict even success or failure.

I know one journalist who prepared a win story and a lose story in advance as Britain’s Linford Christie defended his Olympic 100 metres title at the 1996 Atlanta Games, where the deadlines for UK papers were pressing and awkward. Rather selfishly, I thought, Christie followed neither of these narratives, opting instead to get disqualified for two false starts.

But what can be safely forecast, I trust, is that win, lose or draw, the enigmatic and engaging Mr Barshim, whose 2014 best careful - of 2.43 metres had only been bettered by one jumper, Cuba’s world record holder Javier Sotomayor before and maybe after the Championships…where was I? Oh yes, he will still be wearing his baseball caps.

Because he loves his baseball caps, win, lose or draw.

A year after Barshim’s 2.43m effort, a colleague and I were leaving the traditional Strawberry Party and press conference at Oslo’s City Hall on the eve of the IAAF Diamond League meeting.

Flummoxed perhaps by our official accreditation, a man standing next to a grey car opened the door for us and, keen to get back to the meeting hotel, we decided that rather than wait for the bus we would get in.

But when two other bodies arrived to fill the seats there was some awkwardness, as one of them was track and field thoroughbred Barshim.

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Mutaz Essa Barshim wearing one of his many baseball caps. Photo: Getty Images

After some comic shuffling it made sense for Qatar’s prize athletic possession to get in next to the driver so that he was able, if not to stretch his long legs, then at least not to have them jammed into the back of a seat.

A few minutes earlier, Barshim had explained patiently that he had suffered with chronic back trouble in recent seasons and was anxious not to do “anything stupid” as he looked ahead to that summer’s Beijing World Championships and the Rio Olympics beyond.

As our car sped through the city centre streets, you could only wonder at the thoughts of the elongated front passenger in shades and baseball cap.

“Like the hat Mutaz,” I said. It was tall and grey, with the logo “What gravity huh?...” on it.

“Thanks,” he said. “I designed it myself.”

Then the earphones went in.

I like to think that, if and when Barshim betters the world record of 2.45m - an ambition made clear on his personal website, with its heading of “at least three centimetres to go” - that he will have another baseball cap design ready and waiting. Assuming you haven’t already seen it of course.

Barshim and hats are now an item. A fixture. Naturally there are pictures of him under baseball caps on his site, as well as one of him nattily dressed and wearing what looks like a trilby.

The Qatari’s range of headwear, however, is no more than an expression of joie de vivre.

There was a more utilitarian aspect to what is probably still the most celebrated athlete/hat double act in the sport’s history, involving the 1972 Olympic 800m champion Dave Wottle.

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The then 22-year-old from Ohio arrived at the Munich Games with a new, but impressive, reputation, having equalled the world record of 1min 44.3sec at the US Olympic trials.

Wottle had originally taken to wearing a cheap golf cap to keep his long hair out of his face when he ran, and had continued with it partly as a good luck charm.

It meant he was easy to track in the Olympic final as he moved up from last to first in the final 300m, beating the spent force of Russia’s Yevgeny Arzhanov by just 0.03sec.

As Milton Richman wrote from Munich in the State Journal-Register, Wottle’s local Illinois newspaper: “The cap sells for 75 cents.

You can get it for 35 cents wholesale. Dave Wottle wears it practically everywhere. He wears it when he runs. He wears it when he trains. He wears it when he’s relaxing around the Olympic Village here.

“And he wore it when they played the Star Spangled Banner after he was presented with his gold medal for winning the 800m event at Olympic Stadium on Saturday.”

When Richman asked Wottle why he looked so woebegone in the wake of his win, the young athlete, on the verge of tears, replied: “Because I am very embarrassed about not taking my hat off on the stand. I just forgot. I didn’t realise it was still on my head. The people in America won’t understand. I’m going to apologise to the American people. When? Right now, and again, and again.”

I’m thinking that if Barshim got to stand on the podium in the Khalifa International Stadium he would have been able to wear one of his hats without feeling the need to apologise…

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