With a week to go until the IOC members vote on whether to award the 2022 Olympic Games to Beijing or Almaty, a leading human rights nonprofit asserts that the IOC has no tools with which to enforce their vague mandate of “human dignity”.
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Inside the Candidate City Presentation Rooms and 2022 Bidding Process in Lausanne (Photo Gallery)
Chelsea LittleJune 10, 2015
After the 2002 Salt Lake City bidding scandal, IOC members are not allowed to visit candidate cities during Olympic bidding. Instead, they have to rely on promotional materials, presentations, an Evaluation Commission report, and bid committee presentation rooms for information. Here's what that looks like.
With a strong presentation to IOC members, confident answers to nagging questions, and in-person testimony from none other than the Prime Minister, Almaty made up some of the gap to Beijing in the race for 2022 Winter Olympic hosting rights. There's still hope to award medals in the land of Vladimir Smirnov. Voting is in late July.
By Severing Ties, Bach Kills SportAccord; IOC Carries Full Weight of Sport’s Future & Reform
Chelsea LittleJune 8, 2015
You might not know what Sport Accord is, but the systematic behind-the-scenes and now public dismantling of the former association of international Olympic and non-Olympic sports federations has shown IOC President Bach's ruthless side. The positive aspects of his reform agenda had better be substantial and followed to their best conclusion.
IOC President Offers Advice, But Insists Reform Is “Something That FIFA Has to Decide” Itself
Chelsea LittleJune 8, 2015
LAUSANNE, Switzerland—In 20 minutes of self-directed comments to the press yesterday, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach did not address the scandal rocking the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), where high-ranking soccer officials were arrested by Swiss authorities based on corruption charges brought by the United States Department of Justice. But Bach did make sure to point out the improvements in governance that have taken place at the IOC in the last 15...
After the Norwegian women's ski team wore black armbands in honor of Astrid Jacobsen's deceased brother, the IOC issued them a reprimand - which seemed, and was, tone-deaf. The organization is now building a specific mourning place in future Olympic Villages to be more friendly to grieving athletes.
The IOC Executive Board meets in Lausanne this week, and then all IOC members will have the chance to hear from the organizing committees of the Almaty and Beijing bids for the 2022 Winter Games. Members will vote in July. How are the bids shaking out, and what's going on in the Olympic movement? Read on.
Cross Country Canada High Performance Director Tom Holland reports back on a trip to South Korea, where he scoped out the site of the 2018 Olympics. "It's a more simple Games," he said. The biathlon stadium is in good shape, but some of the cross country ski trails aren't built yet.
IBU President Anders Besseberg explained to FasterSkier that he is "harmonizing" the blood screening procedures at Olympic Games between biathlon, skiing, and speedskating, and then the IOC will take over all administration of the tests. But his claims that VP for Medical Issues Jim Carrabre never contacted him about the issue is false, as e-mails shared by Carrabre show that he did try to ask the president why the decision was taken.
Austrian cross country skier Johannes Dürr says that he began taking EPO in June, after pressure to support his family became too much to bear. He says he acquired it from the former Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, the Austrian Ski Federation is considering kicking cross-country skiing out of the snow sports conglomerate after two scandals in three Olympics.
On Saturday, Marit Bjørgen and the Norwegian women wore black armbands in the Olympic skiathlon to honor teammate Astrid Jacobsen's brother, who died unexpectedly the day before. The IOC didn't like that one bit, likening it to a political statement, which is banned at the Games.
Ever wonder how skiers from places like Argentina get to go to the Olympics? The meet qualifying standards just like everybody else, while also meeting their own nation's criteria. Even in a place like New Zealand, it's not easy. " I do not understand New Zealand's reluctance to support winter sport, other than those in the top 16 in the world,” national-team member Sarah Murphy says.
(Press release) ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Lars Flora, two-time Olympian and executive director and founder of NANANordic, is one of three U.S. representatives chosen to participate in the International Olympic Academy (IOA) from June 11 – 25, 2013, in Athens and Olympia, Greece. The other two are U.S. Olympic Committee staffers. The IOA’s goal is to educate and motivate young people to use their experiences and knowledge gained from the session productively in promoting the Olympic...
Fifty Years Later, Olympic Anti-Doping Quest is Unrecognizably Changed for the Better
Chelsea LittleNovember 12, 2012
Note: This is the third piece culled from an interview with Professor Arne Ljungqvist. The first two addressed current challenges faced by the International Ski Federation (FIS) and other anti-doping groups today. Since humans first started challenging each other in feats of athleticism, there have been cheaters. And likely for almost that long, there have been cheaters that used some sort of performance enhancing substances to beat their competitors. But it wasn’t until the 1960s...
“Doping is Such a Shame Here”: Why Skiing’s Next Positive Test Won’t Come from Scandinavia
Chelsea LittleNovember 7, 2012
STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Imagine if Charlotte Kalla or Marcus Hellner were caught this season with a positive test for EPO, or maybe a bag of blood in a hotel room. Or what if Ole Einar Bjørndalen showed up with HGH, or Petter Northug with steroids? If you can’t imagine any of these things, it’s because of a cultural change in Scandinavia in the last two or three decades that is the result largely of the...
This Month in Journals: Does Compartment Syndrome Diagnosis Method Lead to Unnecessary Surgeries?
Chelsea LittleOctober 26, 2012
FasterSkier is starting a once-a-month series looking at new research in the field of sports science. Periodically, we’ll flip through some of the world’s best peer-reviewed medical journals and summarize, in plain English, studies that we think will be of interest to skiers. Here’s our second installment; you can check out the first in a recent paper in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. “The pathophysiology of the condition is poorly understood,...
Rhetoric Aside, a Less Publicized Goal in WADA Ban of Asthma Medications: Healthy Athletes
Chelsea LittleOctober 19, 2012
This is the second of two pieces looking at the use of bronchodilating drugs to treat asthma in athletes – and their changing place on WADA’s prohibited list. available as PDF), the authors write that “Vigorous physical exercise can be followed by transient clinical signs and symptoms similar to an asthma attack and are due to post-exercise bronchoconstriction (i.e., a narrowing of the airways). Clinical symptoms include coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, excessive mucus...
CAS Overturns IOC’s Rule Against Dopers, Opens Door to Sochi for Yaroshenko, Matveeva, and Others
Chelsea LittleOctober 10, 2011
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) recently reached a decision which could drastically change the competitive landscape at the Sochi Olympics. “I can not describe in words how happy I will be able to defend the honor of Russia in Sochi,” Russian skier Natalia Matveeva told skisport.ru. Matveeva has stood on the World Cup podium ten times, and recently finished a two-year doping ban after testing positive for EPO. But even though she had...
For the nordic world, the highest profile issue on the agenda at the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) recent executive board meeting in late October was the inclusion of women’s ski jumping in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. But besides other events like the figure skating team event and a luge relay (FasterSkier isn’t sure how that works, but we want to see a hand-tag halfway down the luge track…), the IOC board also looked “favorably” towards...
Austria will set a precedent in the new year when proposed changes to their Criminal Code will make the use of performance enhancing drugs during competition a criminal offense, allowing for penalties of up to 10 years in prison. The proposals, introduced by Sports Minister Norbert Darabos and Minister of Justice Claudia Bandion-Ortner, would not only prosecute athletes who have been cought doping, but also the personell involved in the athlete’s deception, such as coaches...