Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, March nineteen, twenty twenty five. Israel is pounding
Speaker 1: Gaza again. Hundreds have reportedly died in air strikes, which
Speaker 1: Israel says are aimed at eliminating Hamas command structures and
Speaker 1: enforcing the return of hostages. You can read all our
Speaker 1: reporting and analysis of the latest twist in that conflict
Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au. The
Speaker 1: International Olympic Committee is meeting to elect a new president
Speaker 1: with a mandate to overhaul the Games. The candidates are
Speaker 1: united on one issue, trans women will be banned from
Speaker 1: female sporting categories. Today, our europe correspondent, Jacqueline Magne, who's
Speaker 1: covered fifteen Olympic Games, sizes up the candidates for world
Speaker 1: sports most powerful role and tells us why they're on
Speaker 1: a unity ticket about women's sport. That's today's episode. Jacqueline
Speaker 1: Magnet is the Australian's Europe correspondent, and she's simultaneously covering
Speaker 1: the jostling for two incredibly important global positions, the papacy
Speaker 1: and the presidency of the IOC. Jack do you ever
Speaker 1: get these two things muddled up in your head and
Speaker 1: dream about Sebastian Cove becoming pope.
Speaker 2: Well maybe Sebastian co might think that, but no, but
Speaker 2: the two organizations have very very similar structures in the
Speaker 2: way that they conduct their elections. So I suppose we've
Speaker 2: got a conclave happening this week in Greece on this
Speaker 2: resort Costa Navarino, which is usually a lovely summer resort.
Speaker 2: There's helipads everywhere, but it's empty at the moment except
Speaker 2: for one hundred and eight IOC members that have flown in,
Speaker 2: but also their families and the entourages in world sport.
Speaker 2: They're all converging on this west coast of Greece. It's
Speaker 2: about a four and a half hour drive from Athens,
Speaker 2: and they're electing the new president to take over from
Speaker 2: Thomas Bark who's helmed the organization for twelve years now,
Speaker 2: and he steps down in June, but his success will
Speaker 2: be elected on Thursday evening.
Speaker 1: Last time, most of our listeners paid attention to the
Speaker 1: International Olympic Committee members were being disgraced and kicked off
Speaker 1: the committee for accepting bribes all sorts of acts of
Speaker 1: corruption that was a couple of decades ago, around the
Speaker 1: time of the Sydney Olympics, less.
Speaker 3: Than one hundred days.
Speaker 4: The Olympic movement has faced its most serious challenge in
Speaker 4: the past one hundred years by a bribery scheme that
Speaker 4: had far reaching consequences for the International Olympic Committee at
Speaker 4: Salt Lake City won the bid on its merits, not
Speaker 4: because of this program.
Speaker 5: We are aware that there are agents, and we are
Speaker 5: aware of the identities of at least some of them.
Speaker 3: What they've done or not done, we don't know yet.
Speaker 2: Apparently I said too much.
Speaker 1: What is this organization? Now? Has it cleaned up its act?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: It has because it had a very good president in
Speaker 2: Jacques Rogge, who implemented new rules that members couldn't go
Speaker 2: and to the bid cities anymore. And then we've had
Speaker 2: Thomas Bark for the last twelve years and he's really
Speaker 2: run it as a personal fifdom, you know, very autocratic.
Speaker 2: His rule is the way to go. If people don't
Speaker 2: follow him or are not happy with what he suggests,
Speaker 2: people are very much shunned and pushed to the outer
Speaker 2: So he's created an interesting organization that's very closeted and
Speaker 2: the power is held within the executive and just a
Speaker 2: handful of IOC members, and so we've got this election.
Speaker 2: At the moment, there's seven candidates and nearly all of
Speaker 2: them are saying they want to open up the Olympic movement.
Speaker 2: They want to have allow members to have more of
Speaker 2: a say. Some of them are even suggesting that they
Speaker 2: may go back to the time of having members able
Speaker 2: to visit bid cities and have more of an input
Speaker 2: into that decision because for the last decade they've felt
Speaker 2: very much on the outer.
Speaker 1: What are the other big issues on the table?
Speaker 2: Jack, Well, some of the big issues are what sports
Speaker 2: are going to be on the Olympic program and that
Speaker 2: will impact on Brisbane. Twenty thirty two.
Speaker 4: The International Olympic Committee as the honor to announce that
Speaker 4: the Games of the thirty fifth Olympiad I award it
Speaker 4: to Brisbane, Australia.
Speaker 2: Those will be made in the next year or so.
Speaker 2: We've seen just this week how boxing will be on
Speaker 2: the LA program. So boxing is an Olympic sport but
Speaker 2: was not on the LA program because of concerns about
Speaker 2: which organization will run World boxing. And so during the
Speaker 2: Paris Olympic Games, the IOC ran it and we had
Speaker 2: that huge controversy where we had two athletes who have
Speaker 2: failed previous six tests that were conducted by the International
Speaker 2: Boxing Association. They were allowed to compete as females and
Speaker 2: they won gold medals.
Speaker 3: The International Olympic Committee is playing defense. A day after
Speaker 3: an Algerian boxer deemed a biological male faced off against
Speaker 3: an Italian opponent who has hit so hard she stopped
Speaker 3: the fight.
Speaker 1: Italian Angela Karini could take no more, feeling unfairly overpowered
Speaker 1: by Iman Khalif.
Speaker 2: But for LA, the IOC doesn't want to conduct the
Speaker 2: boxing competition themselves. They want an international federation to conduct it,
Speaker 2: and so a rival boxing organization, World Boxing, has now
Speaker 2: been given the approval to host and control boxing for
Speaker 2: the Olympic Committee. And so it means that this rival
Speaker 2: boxing organization will now take over and run the competition.
Speaker 1: Is breaking going to be back for the next It's
Speaker 1: a good credit.
Speaker 2: No, I certainly don't think it does not have very
Speaker 2: big support amongst the IOC members at the moment. There's
Speaker 2: other sports, particularly cricket. I think they really want cricket
Speaker 2: to be a permanent sport on the Olympic program. But
Speaker 2: again it will depend on who the president is and
Speaker 2: what their particular quirks and favorites are. And one of
Speaker 2: the candidates is Juan Antonio Samarach who has been very
Speaker 2: closely associated with modern pentathlon for about two decades. And
Speaker 2: if you recall the name Juan Antonio Sabarange where John
Speaker 2: saw everybody does, that's his father. So Samaranch Senior headed
Speaker 2: up the organization as president for twenty one years, including
Speaker 2: awarding the Games to Sydney, and then was the president
Speaker 2: during the time of the Sydney Olympics.
Speaker 4: You have presented to the world the best Olympic Games ever.
Speaker 2: Well it's his son now who is standing to be
Speaker 2: president again and following his father's footsteps.
Speaker 1: Another issue that they're going to have to look at
Speaker 1: across the whole Olympic program is the question of transgender
Speaker 1: athletes competing at the Games. Until now, that's really been
Speaker 1: left to individual sporting federations to work out some rules
Speaker 1: for themselves. Of course, Donald Trump has said that no
Speaker 1: transgender athletes will be able to compete for the United States.
Speaker 1: So is this something that whoever the IOC president is
Speaker 1: going to have to resolve across the board.
Speaker 2: This is such a hot topic and all of the
Speaker 2: IOC candidates have said that they will make the female
Speaker 2: competition for biological females only. Now, this was a stance
Speaker 2: that Sebastian Coe was very public about several years ago,
Speaker 2: and in his position as President of World Athletics, he
Speaker 2: was one of the first sports to have very clear
Speaker 2: rules about the female category being for biological females. His
Speaker 2: camp is a little bit miffed really that all the
Speaker 2: other IOC candidates have now fallen in behind him and
Speaker 2: have adopted very similar policies because they've bred the room,
Speaker 2: They've gone and spoken to the members. Everybody has said,
Speaker 2: this issue is ridiculous. Why are we involved in this.
Speaker 2: We are not the United Nations. We are running sport
Speaker 2: and we have to protect sport for half of our constituency.
Speaker 2: And so they've all swung in behind and whoever will
Speaker 2: be president next week will be implementing a kind of
Speaker 2: blanket directive about this and directing all the international sports
Speaker 2: giving them a clear and single policy in which to implement,
Speaker 2: so that all sport across the board will have a
Speaker 2: very similar policy where female sport will be for biological females.
Speaker 1: Coming up. One of the candidates wants to rename the Games.
Speaker 1: And who else is in the running to run the IOC.
Speaker 1: That's after the break.
Speaker 5: Seven candidates are vying to become the tenth President of
Speaker 5: the International Olympics Committee at the one hundred and forty
Speaker 5: third IOC session in Greece. They will be running to
Speaker 5: succeed seventy one year old German Thomas Buck, who has
Speaker 5: been at the helm of the IOC since October twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: Let's have look at some of the other front runners.
Speaker 3: World record another gold medal.
Speaker 1: Kirsty Coventry future Kirsty Coventry is a zimbabewin swimmer, very famous,
Speaker 1: one lot of medals. She then became a politician in
Speaker 1: Zimbabwe and she's been active in the IOC for a
Speaker 1: number of years. What sort of candidate is she.
Speaker 2: Well, we know Kirsty quite well because she is the
Speaker 2: IOC's coordination chair for the Brisbane Olympics. So she's female,
Speaker 2: she's from Africa, and she's also a young mother. She
Speaker 2: has a four month old baby as well as a
Speaker 2: five year old. So Thomas Bark is very much pushing
Speaker 2: her candidate to the point where he's ringing other IOC
Speaker 2: members convincing them to try and swing behind Kirsty Coventry.
Speaker 2: So more of the same is what her presidency would
Speaker 2: be like. But then that holds her distinctly different to
Speaker 2: all the other candidates. So it's whether the IOC membership
Speaker 2: wants what's been happening in the past decade or so
Speaker 2: to continue on or not.
Speaker 1: There's a Jordanian prince and Japanese candidate. Tell us about
Speaker 1: some of the others.
Speaker 2: Prince Vazo from Jordan, the royal family. He's very charming,
Speaker 2: very well liked, but he's considered very much a lightweight
Speaker 2: in the IOC. We've also got Mariani Wattanabi, who is
Speaker 2: the Japanese head of the International Gymnastics Federation, and he's
Speaker 2: actually thrown a lot of color into this election because
Speaker 2: he's got some really wild ideas. He wants the Olympics
Speaker 2: held on all five continents all at once, and suggesting
Speaker 2: to change the name of the Olympics. He wants to
Speaker 2: call the Olympics the World Games, which is not that
Speaker 2: radical in terms of a name, but why are you
Speaker 2: going to get rid of your prize branding that's been
Speaker 2: built up over one hundred years and that's what all
Speaker 2: the sponsors are paying for that to be associated with
Speaker 2: the Olympics. So I don't think that one's going to fly.
Speaker 2: There's also Lord Sebastian Coe. Now he's got the best
Speaker 2: CV of all because he's world record holder, multiple Olympic champion.
Speaker 3: It's Sebastian Path expending his lead and Sebastian past Sebastian
Speaker 3: cow wins the gold matter.
Speaker 2: He headed up the London twenty twelve bid and then
Speaker 2: also the Olympic Games there and Chair of World Athletics
Speaker 2: and they've got two hundred members around the world, all
Speaker 2: the countries, so he's been able to go a network
Speaker 2: with all of these voting members for some time now,
Speaker 2: and I think he's the candidate with the momentum at
Speaker 2: the moment. I think a month ago, I would have
Speaker 2: said Juan Antonio Samarance Junior was the favorite because he
Speaker 2: is very well known, very charming, very friendly, and everybody
Speaker 2: wants to tell him that they're voting for him. But
Speaker 2: I think that Sebastian Coe in the last month has
Speaker 2: really worked hard. Look, it's so hard to tell because
Speaker 2: it's a secret ballot and all the members say, oh,
Speaker 2: you can have my vote, but they never tell you
Speaker 2: in which round they're going to vote for you, so
Speaker 2: you know it is minde in secrecy and it's just
Speaker 2: fascinating to see if there's a block of votes then
Speaker 2: swinging behind another candidate.
Speaker 1: Jacqueline Magnet is The Australian's europe correspondent. You can follow
Speaker 1: her coverage of the IOC election live on Thursday and
Speaker 1: Friday at the Australian dot com dot au