Lessons From a Modern Day Sporting Scandal

The scandal that has engulfed Australia in recent days doesn’t involve the publication of national security secrets on Facebook; a new international report on Australia’s treatment of refugees; or an attempted foreign takeover of a major Australian energy provider. Nor does the scandal involve the substitution of test samples for doping from top athletes – instead, the scandal involves tampering with the ball in a cricket match against South Africa.

While most incidents of cheating in sport are usually confined to local athletes, teams and sports governing bodies, the cricket ball tampering affair has gripped Australia like no other in recent times, also creating international headlines because of the Australia’s reputation as one of the world’s most successful, admired and credible sporting nations.

While the scandal marks another new low in sport, it also demonstrates the huge impact sport corruption can have on a country, and provides important lessons in understanding and dealing with corruption and cheating in sport.

The Australian cricket crisis has rapidly become a national obsession and subject of international interest and intrigue, due in part also to the old world romanticism surrounding cricket as a sport based on principles of fair play. Ball tampering is just not cricket.

Cricket appeals to the masses, and to princes and prime ministers alike, with generations of political leaders, including former Australian Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and John Howard, along with British PMs including John Major, and current leader Theresa May, who has urged cricket officials to repair the damage caused by the ball tampering scandal to cricket’s image as soon as possible.

The scandal has clean bowled Australia’s confidence in sport, with current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull leading a national chorus of condemnation against the ball tampering plot, describing the incident as an affront to Australia and its values, and calling also for other cricket dark arts to be abandoned, especially sledging, which involves verbally attacking and distracting opponents on the cricket field.

Events on the sporting field and battlefield have come to define Australia society and values, which helps to explain why the plot to apply sandpaper to the cricket ball to make it more difficult for opposition batsmen or strikers to hit the ball has taken on almost existential overtones for this sports obsessed nation.

Sport has been a pillar of Australia’s development as a modern, progressive nation from a settlement of convicts dispatched from the British Isles, who later excelled in many of the sports that were invented and codified in England and later exported to the vast corners of the British empire, including cricket.

Like America’s pastime, baseball, with which cricket shares many cross over skills as one of the world’s popular bat and ball sports, cricket is also one of Australia’s favourite past times, spanning the social spectrum – from beach and backyard settings to inner city lane ways, local parks, and indoor centres, and fills world famous venues such as the 100,000 seat Melbourne Cricket Ground, in the Australian state of Victoria, one of the biggest sports stadiums in the world and venue for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.  

Sport has also played a critical role in building Australia’s international image, with national Olympic delegations and cricket teams in particular capturing much admiration abroad as well as at home, and acting as athlete foreign ambassadors for Australia while on tour.

When South Africa’s late great human rights champion and Nobel laureate, Nelson Mandela, was released from prison, one of the first questions he asked was whether Australia’s legendary cricketer, Sir Donald Bradman, who notched up a near perfect and still unmatched record test batting average of 99.94 runs, was still alive.  

With trust in sport at an all time low globally, the fall out from Australia’s cricket scandal has important implications for the IOC, WADA, FIFA, IAAF, UCI and other world governing bodies, agencies and federations.

These include the need to better understand and anticipate the changing sports landscape and priorities of key stakeholders – especially the public, commercial partners, young people, media and governments – increasingly the primary funders of major sporting events – who are seeking and expecting a swifter, and more decisive and urgent ‘zero tolerance’ approach to sports corruption.

If the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games was the high point of Australia’s sporting achievements to date, the ball tampering affair is the nadir for the powerful sporting nation.

While Australia’s Olympic success has diminished somewhat in recent years, the national cricket team has continued to keep the Australian flag flying high on the world sports stage – Australia has featured in 6 of 9 World Cup finals, including the last four in a row, and is current world champion.

The ball tampering scandal however has shaken the country’s sense of identity and place in the world as a nation that has long believed in a fair go for all on and off the sporting field. 

With a number leading national Olympic committees reviewing the culture of their organisations while addressing a range of controversies including doping, work place bullying, and sexual abuse of athletes, issues within the culture of Australian cricket have been linked to the ball tampering conspiracy.

While many Australians would still be proud to wear the national team’s signature baggy green cricket cap, the public’s affection for its beloved national cricket team has waned in recent times, with fans increasingly disillusioned by a ruthless ‘win at all costs’ culture that has taken hold within the team as evidenced by the ball tampering scandal.

The annual multi million dollar contracts and glamorous lifestyles with luxury trappings afforded from representing Australia have also alienated fans from cricket stars placing themselves on their own pedestals, increasingly out of touch with the public on whom the game and their careers ultimately depend.

Australian cricket officials have also been heavily criticised for allowing an aggressive, arrogant and elitist culture to develop within the team environment that does not represents the values of Australian sport and society.

Cricket officials have also been heavily criticised for being too slow to understand and respond to the deep anger and fury of the public and country to the incident, prompting sponsors to cancel multi million dollar contracts.

Similarly, perhaps, while concerns and criticism have been made in relation to perceived delays in suspending Russia from Olympic competition following the discovery a massive secret doping operation involving government facilities and officials, the Olympic Movement needs to find better ways to communicate the due process involved in national Olympic committee suspensions to sports audiences unfamiliar with the subtleties of international sports federation protocols and procedures, which cannot be adequately conveyed in headline news bulletins.

New campaigns reinforcing the tradition values of sport to global audiences will also help to provide a more receptive and responsive environment for swifter and more decisive penalties for athletes, teams and countries that engage in sports corruption.

 Michael Pirrie is a London based major events communications strategy consultant and commentator on Olympic and world news. 

Death of a Sporting Legend – Sir Roger Bannister

Those last few seconds of the historic 1954 first sub-four minute mile have, indeed, been never ending for Sir Roger Bannister, and nearly 50 years after the great race, Bannister’s name was at the top of a list of possible British sporting greats I found myself compiling to garner support for the bid to bring the Olympic Games to London in 2012.

We were preparing to launch the Olympic Games Bid in 2003, and wanted the endorsement of athletes who we thought could unite support behind the bid, including the great Daley Thompson, whose Olympic achievements and passion for the Games had been vital in building a coalition of support and confidence in London in the early stages of the bid process.

While a number of contemporary Olympians had offered their services in return for appearance money or support fees, Bannister’s deep humility prevented him from putting his name forward at all.

GENTLE GIANT OF MODERN SPORT

But when approached, Sir Roger gave unwavering support for the London 2012 Olympic Games, but never asked to be rewarded in any way. Yet Bannister’s support was priceless, and brought enormous credibility to London’s Olympic bid. Nor did Bannister seek any publicity or recognition for his roles in London 2012 or ask for a contract, as many others also did. A gentleman’s agreement was sufficient for this gentleman giant of 20th century sport.

Sir Roger assisted London’s Olympic bid behind the scenes in ways that did not require the public spotlight that he found tiresome and unhelpful, but which so many have sought through an Olympic association.

As arguably the most distinguished and respected of Britain’s living sporting greats at the time, Bannister’s association with the London Olympic bid helped to bring the Games back to the UK capital in 2012 for the first time since the London 1948 post war Olympics, which ironically, Bannister did not believe he was ready to compete in.

BANNISTER TRANSCENDED OLYMPIC FAME

Bannister’s fame is unique in modern sporting history, in part because he turned his back on sport at the very pinnacle of fame.Bannister belongs in the pantheon of sporting legends, alongside Jesse Owens, Usain Bolt and Muhammad Ali, but unlike the golden Olympic trio Bannister never won an Olympic medal.

Bannister’s athletic achievements were so extraordinary that he transcended the Olympics – he used his defeat at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki as the motivation to break the supposedly impossible four minute mile and retired from competition before the next Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956.

While Bannister never won an Olympic medal, his career included many Olympic connections, including a return to the famous Oxford sub four minute mile track setting in 2012 to carry the Olympic Torch in the countdown to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

MOON LANDING OF MODERN SPORT

Bannister has been the torch bearer for sporting excellence and fair play from the moment he ran into the sporting and world history records by breaking the mythical four minute mile.

The four-minute barrier was thought to have been so improbable that Bannister’s race was often described as ‘the Everest of Sport.’ In reality, it was more like the ‘Moon Landing of Sport.’

Bannister’s run was the human equivalent of breaking the sound barrier or travelling at the speed of sound in terms of the scale of the challenge and the global noise and conversation his run created.

Bannister’s milestone shaped the future direction of athletics and became a new metaphor for human achievement in the world of sport and beyond in wider society.

DAWN OF NEW SPORTS MARKETING ARMS RACE

Bannister generated unprecedented global attention and interest in athletics and helped to elevate sport to new levels on the international agenda. The record-breaking run also focused new attention on international athletes and major sporting events like the Olympic Games.

Bannister also helped to turn the 1500 metres – or the old mile – into a premier Olympic event, and paved the way for new generations of middle distance runners and rivals, including Herb Elliot, Coe, Ovett, John Walker and many others.

A new sports marketing arms race dawned as athletes and nations raced each other like never before to set new records in previously unthinkable times and follow in Bannister’s footsteps.

Bannister changed everything, as rapidly growing television and radio audiences tuned in to follow the fortunes of a new generation of post World War 11 athletes who captivated and inspired the world with feats of endurance, speed and courage.

Bannister’s race against the Australian middle distance champion John Landy – who had broken Bannister’s initial sub four minute mile shortly after he set the record – at the 1954 Vancouver Empire (Commonwealth) Games was even described as the “Race of the Century,” which Bannister won.

After also winning the European championships, Bannister did the unthinkable again, this time retiring at his peak to escape the expectations of fleeting fame, and put his energies into a pursuit that he believed would enable him to make a greater contribution to society, in neurology.
If Pierre de Coubertin was looking for someone who embodied the Olympic spirit, it would be Bannister, who had the old world sporting values from Chariots of Fire, and was perhaps motivated as much by fear of failure as by success.

BANNISTER’S LEGACY OF HOPE & INSPIRATION

Even in the post Bannister era where we do not necessarily turn to sport for inspiration following a devastating series of corruption, administration, and cheating scandals – including a damming new report by the UK Government’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee into the fight against doping – Bannister leaves a towering legacy and message of hope for young people and future generations, and of redemption and direction for current athletes and federations.

Despite his lack of Olympic medals, Bannister proved that success in life and sport is possible for athletes without obvious Olympic success. Bannister also proved that success is possible without doping or cheating. Bannister demonstrated that the human body can achieve extraordinary things on and off the sporting field, without performance enhancing substances.

Michael Pirrie is an international Olympic and major events communications advisor and commentator who was executive adviser to London 2012 Olympic Games chairman Seb Coe, and liaised with Sir Roger on various activities during the bid and preparations for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

PyeongChang was the Disruptor Games with the X Peace Factor

The Olympic Games can occur at critical junctures in world history and in the history of host cities and nations as well as the Olympic Movement.

These include the Mexico Olympic Games, at the turbulent end of the sixties revolution, and the Black Power salutes – dramatic arm and hand gestures of protest that connected the Olympic Games and sport with politics and social change in popular culture forever, with saluting black US Games athletes seeking to highlight racial inequality, and asking ‘if not at the Olympic Games when the whole world is watching like a moon landing, then when.’

Fifty years on, the Olympic Movement reached another critical staging post in PyeongChang and in world and sporting history on the nuclearised Korean Peninsula – and again another hand gesture, extended this time in peace rather than protest, has defined the Games.

With large amounts of national time, pride, resources and infrastructure spent on wooing the world and securing the Games from possible nuclear fallout from the North’s missiles, and following previous Games that suffered cost blow outs and failed to realise meaningful legacies, failure was not an option in PyeongChang for either the IOC or South Korean Government.

The hand shake between the President of South Korea and sister of the North’s dictator at the opening ceremony stretched out across the great political divide and decades of personal and family trauma and human rights violations that separate the two Koreas.

OLYMPIC CIRCUIT BREAKER – THE DISRUPTOR GAMES

The overtures of peace instantly transformed pre-Games doomsday scenarios of a winter of nuclear discontent and missiles to medal tables and tallies and set the stage for the ‘Peace Games.’ PyeongChang was also the ‘Disruptor Games’ and significantly advanced the IOC’s Agenda 2020 reforms.

Following a string of scandals in world sport, the PyeongChang peace pact re-energised and re-connected the Olympic Movement with its core values and purpose of promoting peace through sport.

Most importantly, PyeongChang provided the circuit breaker that the IOC was looking for to promote the Games to potential future host cities. PyeongChang staged Games that operated smoothly with robust transport, accommodation and venues plans that avoided excessive Games costs controversies.

While the Olympic truce between the two Koreas ensured the safety of athletes, the ban on the Russian Olympic Committee and many Russian athletes following evidence of extensive doping at Sochi, also reassured competitors.

PyeongChang 2018 produced one of the most electrifying winter Olympic Games experiences of modern times. Like the U2 song Elevation, the athletes made spectators and viewers feel they could fly so high and elevated the Games.

Games athletes thrilled and romanced the world in extreme weather and political conditions and the Games blossomed – the intimate dancing of Canadian pair Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir resembled a very modern bridal waltz performed on ice to Moulin Rouge, although something updated from Baz Luhrmann’s earlier Hollywood interpretation of Romeo and Juliet would have worked just as well.

PyeongChang was a huge triumph for the IOC leadership and President Thomas Bach, and the South Korea President, in the midst of some of the most challenging conditions to confront world sport.

Following the extensive doping and expense of Sochi and chaos of Rio, PyeongChang put a shine back on the Olympic rings and smile on the face of Olympic supporters and athletes worldwide.

MIRACLE ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA

This was much more than another “Miracle on Ice.” This was a Miracle on the Korean Peninsula.  Anchored in the one of the coldest and most dangerous places on the planet, the PyeongChang Games was prepared in the shadows of the North’s much feared nuclear missiles, where test events for the Games were conducted not far from missile test events.

The Games landscape was filled with constant reminders of the political intrigue and danger that surrounded PyeongChang, from ice dancing routines and soundtracks entitled  “Oblivion,” “Secret Spies,” and “Ring of Death” to James Bond medleys and sudden death ice hockey shoot outs.

OLYMPIC SPORTS REACH NEW HEIGHTS IN PYEONGCHANG

The Olympic Games was higher, faster, stronger, and colder in PyeongChang as athletes soared above the geopolitics of the Games, while temperatures plunged and Olympic teams embarked on a modern day expedition to conquor a new ice-age of winter sport in Asia.

Athletes pushed the boundaries of human achievement and movement to breaking point, sometimes requiring helicopter evacuations, hospitalization and surgery following an avalanche of accidents, treated with greater urgency than ever following the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili just before the Opening Ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Games.

With the debut of new sports like Big Air, athletes blessed themselves before jumping off mountains or launching themselves so high into the air on snowboards that a pilot’s license, oxygen mask, and air bag might be required next time along with a flight path plan and air traffic controllers before athletes are cleared to depart from the take off gates again.

NEW OLYMPIC DREAM TEAM

PyeongChang was full of twists, turns, take offs and technical moves and tactics so precise and daring in imagination that multiple video replays were required to decide final outcomes in which lifetimes of training and competition were distilled into mere milliseconds, including a photo finish to separate skiers after 15 kilometers of exhaustive alpine tracking.

The most inspiring moments and memories of the Games however belong to a team that did not win a medal, a semi final or even an early round of competition, but became the new “Dream Team” of the Olympic Movement – the unified athletes of North and South Korea, who shared friendships and marched and competed together in unparalleled scenes on the peninsula.

DOPING DISASTER

As well as inconvenient allegations of human rights crimes leveled by protesters against the North over its presence at the Games, PyeongChang was also a lightning rod for crimes against sport and clean athletes.

While Germany’s surge back to the top tier of the medals table may boost community support for another Olympic Games bid, Russia’s Shakespearean slide down the table with many athletes missing in PyeongChang following extensive doping investigations marked a new low for the proud sporting superpower; a low that many hope will force the Kremlin to continue to enforce all reforms necessary for proper sports governance following Russia’s post Games return to a divided Olympic Family, with some sections said to be in denial and others feeling betrayed by Russia.

RISE OF SMALLER OLYMPIC NATIONS

Norway showed that size does not always win out, as the small nation of just over 5 million residents topped the PyeongChang medal table – a victory that points to alternative funding models for elite sporting success, based around early childhood access to quality local school and community sporting programme – and an abundance of snow.

Athletes from other smaller nations also succeed in PyeongChang against the funding odds, including two New Zealand teenager snowboarders who, in a vision that would make iconic local Lord of the Rings film maker Peter Jackson proud, soared high above middle earth to capture their nation’s elusive first Olympic medals in decades, and joined a new fellowship of the rings.

WINTER GAMES EMERGE FROM SUMMER GAMES SHADOWS

The athletes again led the way in PyeongChang. The extraordinary skills and courage of Olympic winter athletes came into much sharper focus in PyeongChang, and a more distinctive Winter Games style and personality continued to evolve and emerge from the shadows of the much larger Summer Games.

Athletes performed at awe inspiring levels and produced a blizzard of new world and Olympic records and personal bests, almost always with humility, grace and goodwill whatever their fate or outcome. The US snowboard great Sean White spent more than two hours talking to supporters and spectators and signing autographs after his gold in PyeongChang.

The winter athletes often revealed a more humble, youthful and positive team based approach to sport and competition in PyeongChang, highlighted by Australian aerial medal contender David Morris, who, after eliminated from the final by a controversial judging decision, said he was just grateful to have had the opportunity to compete and represent his country.

PYEONGCHANG LEGACY – RELEVANCE OF OLYMPIC SPORT & AGENDA 2020

PyeongChang was the Disruptor Games with the elusive Peace X Factor that re-energised the Olympic Movement and its mission to promote peace through sport.

PyeongChang advanced the IOC’s vital Agenda 2020 reforms and connected new audiences and young people with innovative Olympic sport formats like Big Air, highlighting the relevance of the Olympic brand in the current era of global and regional uncertainty, even in a geopolitical complex and dangerous environments such as the nuclearized Korean Peninsula.

PyeongChang has helped the Olympic Movement to recover from the corruption and expense of Sochi and chaos of Rio, while acknowledging that major issues and reforms like doping and Games costs still need to be addressed.

While the financial and community legacies of PyeongChang will take several years to evolve, the smooth operational delivery of these Games, low doping levels due to extensive intelligence based pre-Games testing, along with the massive positive global attention and recognition given to South Korea and current unrelenting focus by the IOC on driving down Games costs are likely to increase the number of cities coming forward to host future Games.

Above all, PyeongChang shows that sport is still one of the most inclusive, inspiring and unifying forms of human expression and activity on the planet, highlighting the relevance of the Olympic Games in contemporary times and the important role of the IOC as the leader of world sport in today’s society, despite the succession of doping, bribery and financial scandals that have plagued sport worldwide in recent decades.

While the IOC has helped to bring North and South Korea together, one of its most urgent challenges post PyeongChang is to unite the Olympic Movement and stakeholders behind an agreed strategy and plan to fight the doping monster that continues to wreck havoc in the business of world sport and governing bodies.

The PyeongChang Games, like the athletes and Korean culture and history, has shown that the impossible is indeed possible, if not permanently, at least long enough to reveal new horizons and opportunities for positive change even in dark and difficult times

The historic reunion between North and South Korea for the Olympic Games has already led to invitations for further talks between the two Koreas – and possibly even America.

As the Winter Olympic Games begins the four year journey to next host city Beijing, the long march by the united Koreas into the opening and closing ceremonies of PyeongChang may not yet be over!

Michael Pirrie is an international major events and communications adviser and commentator on the Olympic Games and major events. Michael was executive adviser to the London 2012 Olympic Games Organising Committee among other Olympic projects. He was in Durban when the IOC awarded the 2018 PyeongChang Games to South Korea and has followed preparations for the Games.

 

Historic North-South Korea handshake secures success of PyeongChang 2018

South Korea – with a lot of help from the North – delivered a joyous and inspiring opening ceremony that transcended the traditional sporting and cultural focus of the occasion, filling the Olympic stadium in PyeongChang with moving images and moments of hope in a region bitterly divided by history and a fleet of new nuclear missiles.

The warmth and symbolism created in the ceremony of a shared future in peace on the peninsula also transcended and tested reality.

With the US threatening severe sanctions against the North after the Games and the North proceeding with a powerful military parade just over the boarder, fears were growing the ceremony of peace could collapse under the weight of intense geopolitical pressures and international expectations of a North-South Olympic reunion.

The two Koreas however defied history and political gravity, participating in an unprecedented pageant of peace that will live long in the world’s memory of recent sporting, political and Olympic history.

More than ever Olympic ceremonies are digital screen experiences with Disney-like storylines and special effects, and the PyeongChang ceremony travelled to legendary Disney destinations, including stop overs in Frontier Land and Fantasy Land as the ceremony blended, suspended and augmented past, present and future possible realities of life on the peninsula.

While high tech formations of mythical Korean creatures, cultural icons and giant hologram of a human snowboarder in the sky set the scene for the Pyeongchang Games, it was a low key everyday expression of human contact in the VIP box high above the stadium floor that touched the world and changed everything about these Games.

The handshake between the President of South Korea and sister of the North Korea dictator secured the safety of the Games and athletes competing in the shadows of the North’s nuclear missile launching pads.

 

The handshake was brief but almost miraculous given the deep tensions that separate the two Koreas and their allies at opposite ends of the political and human rights spectrum.

The gentle gesture of personal contact between the two was as historic in the circumstance as past encounters between late IRA commander Martin McGuiness and Queen Elizabeth 11 of England, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

This was not Reykjavik but it was an expression of inter Korea solidarity that symbolized the deep yearning on the peninsula for more peaceful relations after prolonged suffering and trauma caused by war and opposing political systems.

And like Reykjavik, progress made in Pyeongchang could pave the way for a modern day perestroika  on the peninsula and possible treaty agreement on use of nuclear weapons in the region that could enable the two Koreas to co-exist in relative peace.

While Olympic ceremonies in recent times have reflected on themes and issues important to host cities and global audiences – from indigenous reconciliation (Sydney 2000; Vancouver 2010); and young people and sport (London 2012); to environmental and urban regeneration (Rio 2016), rarely has the Olympic mission to promote peace been so relevant and so close to home as in South Korea.

Coming after a spate infrastructure budget blow outs, bid city corruption investigations and controversial doping rulings that have threatened the Olympic ideals, the impact of the Pyeongchang peace ceremony has been immediate, re-energizing the IOC leadership with a new narrative that focuses attention back on the relevance of Olympic values in uncertain times.

Host cities have previously included opening ceremony segments dedicated to peace, but rarely has peace been such a constant theme throughout the entire ceremony as in Pyeongchang – for the John Lennon peace classic Imagine, which has become the unofficial Olympic Games anthem it is played so often now in games ceremonies, to the North and South Korea united opening ceremony march updated from the Sydney 2000 Games; and climb by North Korea and South Korea ice hockey players to the top of a steep ramp supporting the Olympic cauldron of peace, symbolizing how far the two Koreas have come and heights scaled in this epic Olympic partnership.

While the Korean ceremony opened a window on important political issues in the region and beyond, IOC President Thomas Bach used the occasion to confront the most urgent issue in world sport, and provided a new focus on what it means to be an Olympian: “You can only really enjoy your Olympic performance if you respect the rules and stay clean,” Bach told Olympic teams in Pyeongchang and athletes, sports fans, coaches, and young people on the worldwide ceremony broadcast, his comments aimed also at Russia’s government controlled national Olympic committee that was disqualified from Pyeongchang  for alleged state-sponsored cover-up of doping activity involving athletes and others in testing procedures for banned substances.

Despite the icy reception that greeted news of the initial meeting between representatives the two Koreas on Olympic collaboration approximately a month ago, there is no knowing where that meeting in an isolated part of the demilitarized zone under satellite surveillance could lead.

The sister of the North Korea dictator has invited the President of South Korea to visit her state, further extending the hand of friendship just hours after the two first engaged in a hand shake at the opening ceremony, demonstrating that progress is possible even in the most unlikely of circumstances.

The Korea coup is a major political achievement in sports diplomacy, and has captured the imagination of the international community, even prompting calls for the IOC to be nominated for the Noble Peace Prize.

The real hope however must be that the Pyeongchang Olympics lead to meaningful change, beginning with meaningful reunion opportunities for war displaced and separated families, a high priority on the peninsula, in order to achieve a more peaceful if not fully united Korea and build a better Tomorrow Land.

About the contributor

Michael Pirrie is an international communications adviser and commentator on Olympic and world sports politics and news. Michael has worked in senior communications and planning positions on several major Olympic projects including the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games, where he served as Executive Adviser to the chair, Sebastian Coe, and most recently advised the City of Budapest on international communications for the 2024 Olympic Games Bid.

North and South Korea Olympic Games reunion set to dominate the PyeongChang Winter Games

Michael Pirrie backgrounds the historic Korea coup, and how the unofficial nuclear truce brokered for the Games enhances the mythology surrounding the Olympic Games, and demonstrates the mission of the modern Olympic Movement to promote peace remains relevant in today’s turbulent times.

There is a weather pattern of emotional high and low pressure zones that heralds the arrival of the winter Olympic Games. There are inherent feelings of anticipation, excitement, danger and unpredictability in the cold predawn mornings, short days and long nights before the Games start.

Anxiety and fear escalate dramatically as the Games get closer in the knowledge that whatever happens in and around the Olympic venues will impact on the future of the host city, and reputations and lives of organisers and especially athletes, for whom the Games can represent more than a decade of training, sacrifice and belief that success is possible against incredible odds and against the best in the world.

Reading the mysteries of what lies beneath the Olympic snow sometimes requires Inuit-like vision. For many competitors, the Olympics represent the gamble of a lifetime, with no guaranteed happy endings.

Danger can lurk anywhere. A practice pirouette can break an ankle and a career, or a final training session can cost you your life as happened with Nodar Kumaritashvili, the young Georgian luger who died just hours before the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, in a tragic crash and in circumstances that remain unresolved for some; a crash that shocked the world, devastated Nodar’s proud family and local community, and highlighted the risks of a life in sport.

Athletes are now traversing the emotional peaks and troughs of South Korea, where the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games is on the launching pad and final calls are under way; cities and isolated communities around the world are counting down to lift off; and elite athletes will soon depart the security of the Olympic Village mother ship to compete on snow capped mountains, alpine slopes, and ice rinks in picturesque settings that conceal the hidden dangers involved in scaling the summits of winter sports.

While Olympic athletes and teams try to keep emotions in check amid fear of failure and the unpredictability of sport at the highest levels, the location of the winter Games on the Korean Peninsula divided by history and a nuclear missile range has tightened the emotional curtain around the 2018 Olympic Games.

The threats of nuclear attack and counter attack by North Korea and the South’s allies for much of the past year cast doubt about whether the Games could proceed in PyeongChang, which the IOC initially did not seem to want and took a long time to warm to, awarding the Games to PyeongChang only after a third bid.

Ironically, however it might be three times lucky for the IOC and the global community, with nuclear doomsday scenarios now avoided, temporarily at least, by the decision of the North Korean dictator to send a delegation to the Games in the South, a decision that seemed so implausible just a few weeks ago that it could only have been conjured up on dream enhancing drugs.

While most Olympic cities fail to meet successful bid promises, South Korea now seems likely to meet possibly the greatest bid promise ever made to win the Games – to use the Olympics to bring the divided Koreas closer.

Despite the cold climate of suspicion that surrounded the initial meeting between North and South Korea last month over Olympic co-operation, the meeting has paved the way for an extraordinary Olympic truce that continues to gather pace and momentum.

Much of the initial doubt and judgement was suspended when the North Korean delegation arrived in Seoul recently on a South Korea jet before passing through immigration, and many political and cultural time zones along the way.

On board the historic flight were members of the North Korean women’s ice hockey team, who will join forces with the South’s hockey team and compete together as one team in the upcoming Olympic Games, which will create one of the most watched and carefully choreographed and photographed team performances in modern sporting history.

The decision by the North’s dictator to send his sister to attend the Opening Ceremony, the first member of the North’s ruling dynasty to visit the South since the Korea war, only makes the drama more compelling and extraordinary and strengthens the inter Korea solidarity.

The Korea coup is a major political achievement in international sports diplomacy, and has captured the imagination of the international community and sports fans everywhere, even prompting calls for the IOC to be nominated for the Noble Peace Prize, and giving rise to much speculation about the motives and parties involved.

It seems inevitable that former UN Secretary General, South Korean diplomat and IOC Ethics Commission leader, Ban-ki Moon, played an important role behind the scenes in the diplomatic coup, along with IOC president Thomas Bach, who, like a predecessor, Juan Antonio Samaranch, has worked hard to develop trusted relationships with world leaders, heads of state and institutions from the Vatican and the Kremlin to the White House and beyond.

These networks form critical back channels of communication, intelligence and influence for the IOC and Olympic Movement that can be activated by Olympic leaders and diplomatic envoys in circumstances that threaten Olympic events and attending teams.

Coming just a few weeks after the uncertainties that clouded Christmas on the Korean peninsula, and more than 100 years after a series of unofficial ceasefires during which soldiers played games of football along the Western Front in the famous World War 1 Christmas truce, the Koreas have confounded all political and diplomatic expectations.

Although far removed from the bloodied landscapes of the WW1 Europe Christmas truce and the Good Friday Northern Ireland peace agreement, the cooperation between the two Koreas over the Olympics is in many ways just as implausible and inspirational as the football ceasefires more than a century ago, and is a major achievement for the IOC President and senior leadership group.

The unofficial nuclear truce brokered for the Games sees the IOC return to its founding role as guardians of athletes, and greatly enhances the mythology surrounding the Olympic Games.

The Korea Olympic reunion demonstrates that the central goal of the Olympic Movement and its flagship event, the Olympic Games in promoting peace is still relevant and possible even in today’s turbulent times.

The Koreas peace deal also demonstrates that the Olympic Movement still has a unique role in world sport in bringing divided countries together, and that this role has not been diminished by the doping crisis that has consumed world sport in recent decades.

The Olympic arrangement also shows that the dream of shared nationhood between the two Koreas still beats strongly, despite the enormous challenges involved, including concerns amongst the South’s big multinationals over the costs involved in reviving, reuniting and nursing the North’s sick economy back to health; a challenge not unlike the economic integration of West and East Germany and so not impossible.

The cooperation between the Koreas has also lifted hopes for a resumption of the reunion process for families shattered by the Korean war, with speculation that some separated families may have the opportunity to meet briefly together during the Games.

While the reunion between the two Koreas may help to sow the seeds of peace in the years ahead, for divided families who may not have seen or had contact with each other for decades, even a brief reunion at the Games would bring a personal peace and even salvation that could last for the rest of their lives.

The participation and presence of the North at the Games has also eliminated other Cold War conspiracies, with the sudden isolation of some Games personnel linked to a norovirus, and not a biological agent or crippling new laboratory designed bacteria.

As long as the North Korea delegation remains at the Games, the unofficial truce will hold and the safety of thousands of the world’s best athletes, spectators and officials will be ensured.

The real hope however must be for the reunion of war displaced and separated families to continue after the Games have ended in order to achieve a more peaceful if not united Korean Peninsula.

The seeming impossibility of the united Korea Olympic Games may even be a source of hope for a possible détente on doping.

As each Olympiad draws to a close, IOC officials work closely with the President and key stakeholders to imagine a title that captures the spirit and character of each Games. It seems PyeongChang will be known as “The Peace Games”

About the contributor

Michael Pirrie is an international communications adviser and commentator on Olympic and world sports politics and news. Michael has worked in senior communications and planning positions on several major Olympic projects including the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games, where he served as Executive Adviser to the chair, Sebastian Coe, and most recently advised the City of Budapest on international communications for the 2024 Olympic Games Bid.

Historic Korean Olympic talks set stage for Games of hope in nation divided by history and nuclear missile range

Michael Pirrie examines the lessons and legacies of the historic meeting between North & South Korean officials that has redefined the Pyeongchang Winter Games for the region and the Olympic Movement

The meeting of the two Korean delegations on the politically and geographically divided peninsula in an isolated demilitarised zone under satellite surveillance to discuss Olympic Games participation, in the shadows of nuclear missile launch sites, was as surreal as it was real.

The Olympic Movement’s year of living dangerously in 2018 has commenced in dramatic style, in settings and locations of political intrigue and danger that would even challenge Olympic secret agent James Bond following his work on the London 2012 Games.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

With the threat of nuclear attack and counter attack continuing, the stakes could hardly have been more urgent, heightened only further as national leaders around the world contemplated their options in the final countdown to the South’s Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, including possible withdrawal of teams for safety and national security.

While the location of the meeting may have revived memories of Bond’s North Korea military mission in Die Another Day, this latest Olympic scenario might have seemed more like Mission Impossible.

The meeting was also one of the most dramatic and unusual in recent Olympic and world history. The outcome of the meeting, in one of the most dangerous places on earth, as unexpected and improbable as the setting itself.

GAMES LIVE ANOTHER DAY

After threatening nuclear war for months, North Korea met with its rival neighbour and agreed to send a team to the South’s Olympic Games in a sudden and dramatic move that brings the isolated state in from the cold and into contact with the nations and territories of the world-wide Olympic Movement.

The Olympic Games deal provides vital extra time for possible further discussions behind the scenes at the Games and other forums, and has eased global tensions and fears.

There was no exchange of political prisoners, suspected spies, or kidnapped activists, academics or residents this time – just an exchange of views about the potential benefits and opportunities from participating at the South Korea Games, and most likely some preliminary discussions about issues and protocols relating to security, travel, accommodation, and visitor contact for the North delegation while attending the Games, which the IOC and South Korean government officials will now organise.

The Olympic Games has been a special event for the Koreas, uniting North and South previously and most visibly at the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

GAMES AT THE EXTREMES

The recent meeting between the two Koreas in such extreme circumstances nearly 20 years later was of itself a major political achievement in international sports diplomacy – an outcome that had eluded the best efforts of the world’s superpowers and leading international relations organisations, including the United Nations.

It seems inevitable however that former UN Secretary General, South Korean diplomat and current IOC Ethics Commission leader, Ban-ki Moon, played an important role in the diplomatic coup, along with IOC president Thomas Bach, who, like a predecessor, Juan Antonio Samaranch, has worked hard to develop trusted relationships with world leaders and heads of state and institutions from the Vatican to the Kremlin, White House and beyond.

These networks and back channels provide a hidden scaffolding for international communication, intelligence and influence for the IOC and Olympic Movement that can be activated by Olympic stakeholders and national committees in times of difficulty.

NEW OLYMPIC LANDSCAPE

The outcome of the dual Koreas meeting provides a dramatic new narrative for the Pyeongchang Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement.

The Koreas deal changes just about everything, and shifts the focus of the Pyeongchang Games from the all consuming Russia doping scandal and ban back to the Games as a catalyst for more peaceful relations and change as envisioned in Pyeongchang’s emotional final presentation to the IOC to host the Games seven years ago – in line with the vision of modern Olympic Movement founder, Pierre de Coubertin, who believed that sport could bring nations together in friendship and diminish fighting and war.

The landmark Koreas meeting has secured a moratorium on military exercises in the region with the agreement of South Korea and the US, and allows North Korea to participate in the Olympic Games and halt nuclear missile testing during the Games period – in effect setting the scene for an Olympic Games truce or peace deal that just days ago seemed impossible.

While sceptics may highlight the failure of the meeting to persuade the North to abandon and surrender its nuclear weapons, this was never about decommissioning the missiles or dismantling nuclear launch pads, which remains the long game.

Indeed, the international campaign of sporting sanctions leveraged against South Africa to dismantle apartheid took several years to reach a critical mass of support for political change, prompting the late South African prisoner and president Nelson Mandela to ask on his release from custody if the great Australian batsman Don Bradman was still alive

While the historic North-South meeting has generated endless speculation about the motives of the parties involved, the most important legacy from the meeting is that the Olympic Games has emerged as an item of major interest for the reclusive North Korean leader, and provides a much needed focus for the international community to engage the North Korean leadership moving forward.

The North Korean leader has also studied the important role the Olympic Games has played in helping to build and advance the nations, infrastructure and image of former Asian Olympic host countries, including Japan, China, and South Korea in 1988.

The return of the Olympic Games to Tokyo and Beijing again over the next four years provides important opportunities to further involve North Korea in these and other Olympic projects in the region.

OLYMPICS ON THIN ICE

While little is known about the North Korean dictator’s sporting interests – the North’s media once broadcast to the population that the North, despite not qualifying, had won the Football World Cup – the North’s leadership now has a much greater understanding of how the Olympic Movement, which has more member nations and territories than the United Nations, can provide a unique showcase for the country and its leader, a high priority for the dictator.

North Korea may have never won an Olympic gold medal, but it has delivered a highly accomplished and well choreographed performance in these high level Olympic talks with the South.

HOPES LIFTED

The surprise outcomes from the meeting of the two Koreas have again lifted hopes in the international community and especially among Koreans for a resumption of the reunion process for the many families shattered by the Korean war, the emotional wounds and suffering from which remain highly sensitive.

Coming just several days after Christmas and more than 100 years after a series of unofficial ceasefires during which soldiers played games of football along the Western Front in the famous World War 1 Christmas truce, the Koreas have formed a modern day truce around the Olympic Games.

The truce may be fragile and temporary and built on conflicting national and international goals and agendas, but its mere presence is a powerful demonstration of the potential role sport can play as the hidden peace maker and diplomat in divided regions and countries.

FAILURE NOT AN OPTION

The success of the Korea talks was vital for the IOC given the time and infrastructure invested in the Pyeongchang Games, which was awarded to the host city on its third bid attempt.

The IOC also needs the Korea Games to proceed smoothly to show that even in such a geopolitically complex and high risk regional environment, the Games can be successful, easing the concerns of potential bid cities about security and related Games costs in such unstable times.

As long as the North attends and the unofficial truce holds, the safety of thousands of the world’s best athletes, spectators and officials will be ensured for the Olympic Games. The real hope however for this skilfully and secretly negotiated settlement must be that any resumption of the reunion programmes for war displaced and separated families will remain in place after the Games have ended.

This is needed to achieve a more peaceful if not united Korean Peninsula.

About the contributor

Michael Pirrie is a London based international communications adviser and commentator on Olympic and world sports politics and news. Michael has worked in senior communications and planning positions on several major Olympic projects including the Sydney and London 2012 Olympic Games, regarded as two of the most successful global sports events in recent times.

Further shifts on the horizon for the Olympic Movement in 2018

As a new year in world and Olympic sport dawns, Michael Pirrie identifies the dramatic changes and moments of Olympic Sport and policies in 2017 & what they mean for the year ahead as the world counts down to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games in the shadows of North Korea’s nuclear missiles

The planet was on high alert for most of 2017 with continuing civil and regional conflicts, terrorist attacks, refugee movements, and heightened national security and human rights concerns clashing with the interests of elite global institutions and organisations, and triggering seismic shifts in international relations, politics, culture and sport.

It was a year of defining change for the Olympic Movement as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) tended to urgent unfinished business and reform.

Amid a global collapse in peaceful political and institutional leadership and change, the IOC executive took unprecedented steps to tackle bribery, corruption, and doping scandals that threatened to crush the very values and ideals that underpin the Olympic Movement, while more cities questioned escalating infrastructure costs, returns on investment and the value of hosting mega sporting events.

Modifications to the Olympic host city selection process in Lima and the IOC ban on Russia for doping demonstrated strong leadership by the Movement’s President, Thomas Bach and his executive team in uncertain times, helping to restore some order, stability and confidence in governance of Olympic and world sport.

LANDMARK PARIS & LOS ANGELES DEAL

The Olympic Movement in 2017 reflected the increasing global interplay between sport and politics, which is at its most intense since the Cold War Moscow and Los Angeles (LA) Olympic Games boycotts. The two former Olympic cities played key roles in reshaping the Olympic universe over the past year but in radically different ways.

LA blinked first in the high stakes bid city poker game with Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games but this time the winner did not take it all, and LA was awarded the Olympic Games for 2028 in a unique and innovative collaboration between rival cities and the IOC.

Moscow, however, refused to blink, and the fallout from the ‘Russiagate’ doping controversy and the most famous “Deep Throat” informant in sporting history continued to set the agenda for the Olympic establishment in 2017 and beyond.

‘RUSSIAGATE’

In this very contemporary political sports drama, with even overtones of a Watergate style ‘All The President’s Men’ government cover up, Russia’s political leaders continued to deny, confuse, and create doubt over Moscow’s secret dirty tricks doping operation, despite compelling evidence compiled by WADA leaders and investigators Craig Reedie, Dick Pound and Richard McLaren and IOC Commissioner Dennis Oswald, which shocked Russia’s supporters and critics alike.

This time the IOC ran out of strategic patience with Russia and launched a rescue operation to save clean Olympic athletes around the world from Russia’s doping dystopia, although it is far from clear how many Olympic careers and dreams may have perished in the process.

Russian national Olympic committee athletes, unless exempted, and former sports minister Mutko, the Darth Vader of Doping, were banned from this year’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games in an unprecedented move by the IOC to contain and deter future doping activity in Russia and other nations.

NEW SPORT BATTLEFRONT

Meanwhile, the grassroots spirit of rebellion that fuelled the Brexit and Trump uprisings became more visible and vocal in sports settings and cities in 2017 as fans, sponsors, community groups and activists began to challenge the status quo and traditions of elite sport in modern society in more spontaneous and strategic ways.

In one of the first international protests of its kind, thousands of spectators attending London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park stadium from across the British capital, UK, Europe and other world regions expressed dissatisfaction and anger with institutional sports politics, jeering loudly when the veteran American sprinter Justin Gatlin, previously convicted of doping, won the prestigious 100 metres title at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in August.

BID CITIES TARGETED & TOPPLE

Olympic bid cities continued to topple in the race for the 2024 Olympic Games race while organised local activists with international links and training mobilised high impact social media campaigns focussing on Olympic Games costs to deter community support for the Games and advance their own political agendas and aspirations.

The Olympic bid process also reflected the year’s wider international themes, with the most memorable line of the 2024 bid campaign – that the Olympic spirit is about ‘building bridges not walls’ – born from a Papal sermon and Trump foreign policy.

The bid for the world’s most spectacular global event turned into a survival contest in which no bid city seemed safe until the Paris-LA 2024-28 Games deal was brokered.

The landmark dual Olympic Games cities deal gives the IOC vital time to develop a new model for choosing future Olympic host cities, based on a more independent selection process rather than the traditional bidding approach that has been vulnerable to manipulation and giving the Games to cities that are not ready.

Despite profound challenges, much went well for the Olympic Movement in 2017. IOC reform strategist John Coates survived a ruthless election smear campaign, saving his presidency of the Australian Olympic Movement from a hostile and politically charged takeover that threatened to split the Olympic Movement in Australia, one of the most successful in the world under Coates.

CRITICAL TOKYO 2020 MISSION

The victory ensures Coates’ critical mission as head of the IOC’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic oversight commission remains on track to curb rising Games costs and budgets and demonstrate meaningful economic, social and community benefits from the Games.

This will help to expand the appeal and pool of potential bid cities for the Olympic Games and other major Olympic sports federation events, like the IAAF World Athletics Championships, which brought in more than $100 million (£74 million) to the economy of 2017 host city, London.

Despite the many political and administrative scandals in world sport, athletes and fans in venues large and small showed that the essence of sport as a source of joy, hope and positive change and opportunity was able to cut through the uncertainty and divisions.

HUMANITY OF SPORT SHINES THROUGH

In a year of extended refugee evacuations that displaced millions more, the most successful athlete from more than 200 nations at the London World Athletics Championships was Mo Farah, a refugee from Somalia who was separated from his twin brother when he moved to the UK capital as a child.

A LEGEND LEAVES THE STAGE

No competitor, however, received more applause, affection or admiration at the championships than Usain Bolt, the fastest moving athlete in the history of the world, who left the global spotlight for the final time after a career of extreme sprinting performances that were drug free and saved the soul of sport.

Bolt reminded us of the important role sport plays in the lives of hundreds of millions of supporters across the planet in difficult times, so poignantly demonstrated by a young boy who gave a detailed verbal description of a game of Australian Rules football to his friend rendered blind by brain cancer after the radio the boy was using to visualise the game suddenly broke down during a vital end-of-season match.

England’s ever resilient Barmy Army of supporters gave a masterclass in the humanity of sport when, in the face of a devastating Test cricket loss to the old enemy in Australia, they suddenly broke into song, serenading “There’s only one Phillip Hughes” to stunned local spectators in an emotional tribute to the late and much loved young Australian Test batsman who was fatally injured when hit in the head by a rapidly rising cricket ball.

WILD ABOUT PRINCE HARRY’S GAMES

Meanwhile, the Balmy Army’s English monarch, Prince Harry, an unlikely modern day Pierre de Coubertin, mobilised political, commercial, media and international support for another edition of his unconquered Invictus Games, this time in Canada.

Harry’s Olympic-styled Games, which will next take place in Sydney later this year, enable war injured men and women from countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Australia, Great Britain, Jordan, the Netherlands, United States and Estonia to represent their countries again, this time on the sports field instead of the battlefield.

The prince’s multi-national, multi venue, multi adaptive sports event has created an impact and a place for itself on the international major events calendar in just three short years since its London launch, helping to heal personal, physical, psychological and national wounds.

The prince’s Invictus phenomenon, more than any other recent sporting event, has helped to identify a new focus, relevance and purpose for sport in these turbulent times of terrorism, conflict, war, institutional failure and geopolitical division. As Royal Marine Andy Grant, an original Invictus competitor says: “I don’t think anything could be more inspiring than seeing a guy who…lay bleeding in a ditch in Afghanistan now running 100 metres in Paralympic time.”

THE NUCLEAR GAMES

Olympic and world sport are likely to rotate around a similarly uncertain and rapidly changing geopolitical axis in the year ahead as preparations for flagship Olympic events step up in geo-politically and security sensitive regions of Asia.

These include China for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Japan for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, and most immediately the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, in the shadows of the North’s nuclear missile silos and launching pads.

OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN

While some have predicted the North could test more missiles as a further warning to the world during the Pyeonchang Games, reducing the Olympic Opening Ceremony fireworks spectacular to a pale flicker by comparison, recent messages from the North’s dictator have hinted that the North may send a team to Pyeongchang, thereby diminishing the nuclear threat, and might even participate in talks with the South in the countdown to the Games – an outcome that has so far defied all previous UN sanctions, resolutions and other diplomatic and trade relations efforts.

The glorious unpredictability of sport and life in these uncertain times, means that the Olympic Movement might bring the two opposing Koreas and their allies together around the Pyeongchang Games for the first time since their teams marched side by side into the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

The current and past year may demonstrate that while world and Olympic sport may not be able to solve the ills of the planet, sport, when properly organised, can still point to what is important on the fields of play and in wider society in the current unstable global environment.

About the contributor

Michael Pirrie is an international communications consultant and commentator on Olympic and world sport, and has worked in senior communications and planning positions for several Olympic projects and events, including the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games.

War on doping goes nuclear as IOC bans Russia in move to make Olympics great again

On the eve of the release of the new Star Wars movie ‘The Last Jedi,’ the IOC has launched its own pre-emptive last strike option against Russia’s evil doping empire – a state sanctioned enterprise built on the secret distribution and concealment of performance enhancing drugs and tests by Russian government sports storm troopers, led by former Sports Minister Mutko, the Darth Vader of doping.

The ban on the Russian Olympic Committee is historic and unprecedented in more than 120 years of the modern Olympic Movement, and highlights the power of the IOC’s supreme decision-making body as the United Nations of Olympic Sport.

While a similar resolution banning Russia from Olympic Games competition may have failed to get through the General Assembly of the United Nations, the IOC executive ban is a stark warning to other nations and governments that they could also face the ultimate sporting sanction and humiliation of Olympic Games disqualification if they cross to the dark side of doping.

The ban on Russia is a powerful reminder of the IOC’s traditional role as guardian of Olympic athletes and sports.

It is also part of a wider strategy to make the Olympic Games great again in the current era of rapid and high risk geopolitical and community change, which is impacting on the number of cities willing to stage the Olympics in the present climate of low economic growth, terrorism, population growth, stretched city services, escalating infrastructure costs, and budgetary pressures.

While many international observers viewed North Korea’s escalating nuclear missile programme as the greatest potential risk to the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in nearby South Korea, Russia’s doping time-bomb was also ticking away ever more loudly in the background, posing a dual threat to the world’s athletes at the Pyeongchang Games.

In the end, it was the IOC, and not any of the former USSR’s Cold War foes in the UN Security Council that took the nuclear option and pushed the Olympic ejector seat button on Russia.

Ironically, Russia’s absence may make the South Korean Olympics a more tempting target for the rogue North regime to show solidarity with Russian comrades against perceived enemy western governments and athletes.

The Russia ban is also a bold attempt by the IOC to bring a greater sense of law and order to the Olympic universe, which has been severely weakened by the current doping wars.

The Russia Games ban follows in the footsteps of an earlier landmark stand taken by the IAAF Council led by President Seb Coe, which prevented Russian track and field athletes linked to doping activity from competing at the Rio Olympic Games, changing national and international perspectives and thinking on doping forever.

The IAAF’s ban, supported by WADA and initially controversial in Olympic circles, paved the way for the IOC’s stand on doping in Russia, which highlights the hard line on doping in the senior leadership group of the IOC – former IOC Vice-President John Coates having previously described Russia’s anti-doping system as “rotten to the core”, while President Thomas Bach described the IAAF ban as “courageous” on the eve of the recent world athletic championships in London.

While the ban comes too late for athletes in Rio, Sochi, London, and earlier Games, it sets a new red flag flashpoint for non-compliant Olympic nations, and provides a much-needed new narrative and context for future Games and for the wider fight against drugs and corruption in sport.

The Russia ban is also driven by corporate and community concerns, and will be widely supported by sponsors and fans, sport’s essential lifelines.

Importantly, the ban is also a response to growing disenchantment amongst clean athletes at having to compete against rivals with doping convictions, which resulted in athlete protests at events and venues at the Rio Olympic Games.

Similar protests by sports fans demanding a more aggressive and less tolerant stand against athletes who dope have also become more visible and vocal – as manifested by the stadium crowds who jeered the American sprinter and convicted doping athlete, Justin Gatlin following his 100 metres victory over Usain Bolt at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in London earlier this year.

Audiences and officials have also expressed concern at the high profile Russian tennis champion Maria Sharipova on her return to the courts after a doping suspension.

The growing public and corporate backlash against doping has also seen sporting events become less prominent on lists of priorities for capital cities.

The global mood against doping is also part of wider concerns about corruption, costs and credibility of mega sport events that are deterring cities from bidding for the Olympic Games.

The ban signals a significant shift in IOC policy and direction on doping away from diplomacy towards a more isolationist position to contain and deter doping activity and better protect clean athletes.

While powerful domestic sporting codes and governing bodies around the world (from Major League Baseball in America to the Australian Football League), have struggled at different times to reach agreement on doping penalties and detection methods, leading to conflicting stakeholder positions, the capacity of the IOC to find a pathway with enough political common ground to overcome the myriad of complex legal and geopolitical issues involved in banning a leading Olympic nation like Russia from the highest level of international competition is testament to the IOC’s governance and decision making structures and frameworks.

The ban gives IOC with a new stamp of authority and leadership following recent difficulties in key areas of Olympic Games business and administration.

These include allegations of potential fraud and bribery involving successful Olympic Games bid committees, and huge blow outs in Games costs and poor Games infrastructure linked to organising committees.

The ban means winter sports activity for most Russian Olympic athletes will be largely confined to the “snow-peaked mountains” referred to in The Beatles political pop hit ‘Back in the USSR’ – a time, place and system where Russia’s modern day doping culture began to flourish in a political climate devoid of the glasnost spirit of openness envisaged by former Soviet leader and visionary Mikhail Gorbachev, a strong supporter of the Olympic Movement, who pleaded with the IOC not to ban Russia from last year’s Rio Summer Games following initial allegations of widespread doping in Russian sport.

Ironically, Gorbachev’s calls for greater transparency of government activity, if implemented, may have saved his beloved Russia from this embarrassing Games ban.

While Russia has dominated the international political agenda in recent years through alliances and interventions in Syria, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, China, and possibly the US elections, the IOC ban is a major blow to Russia’s global image as a sporting and political superpower.

Although host nation, Russia is not expected to win the FIFA Football World Cup next year and was looking instead to gold medal performances from its athletes at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games to reinforce its position as a global force in sport, which forms a key strand of its domestic and foreign policy image and operations.

While the IOC executive fired the bullet that banned Russia in what was essentially an act of self-defence aimed at protecting the Olympic brand, the gun was locked, loaded and armed with evidence carefully compiled by some of the world’s most experienced sports administrators and anti-doping warriors, including WADA Presidents Sir Craig Reedie, and Dick Pound, Professor Richard McLaren, IOC Commissioner Dennis Oswald and others.

There can be no doubt that decisive action was urgently required to protect clean Olympic athletes from Russia’s elaborate doping system – a system so corrupt and ruthless that its inspiration could have come from the Lance Armstrong dark arts school of doping, reminding the world that Russian athletes are not alone in the pursuit of sporting glory at almost any price, although never before has doping been planned on such an industrial scale with such high levels of government support as in Russia.

The case against Russia also includes claims of death threats against whistle blowers who have gone into hiding following the suspicious deaths of several Russian government critics in recent years.

This has prompted the introduction of new identity protection systems to safeguard informants, and while officials investigating corruption in international sport may have not yet taken to wearing bullet proof vests, reprisals may follow, including another spate of attacks by pro-Russian computer hackers to gain access to confidential information about elite athletes to embarrass the countries they represent.

Ultimately however, change, compliance, containment and confidence in Russia can only occur if the culture of doping denial is addressed from the very top.

The ban takes the Olympic Movement and world sport into new and unchartered territory in the search for a solution to doping, although, as the ‘Last Jedi’ ominously warns, this may not end in the way we want it to.

The Russia ban of itself will not end the doping wars, but may help to diminish the doping threat at future Olympic Games in Tokyo, Beijing, Paris and Los Angeles, and provides renewed hope that the scales of justice in the Olympic galaxy may be starting to tip back in favour of clean athletes.

About the contributor

Michael Pirrie is a communications consultant and commentator on Olympic and international sport. Michael led the international media campaign for the London 2012 Olympic Games Bid Committee against Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow, and served as Executive Adviser to the London Olympic Organising Committee, liaising with the IOC Executive Office in Lausanne on high level planning meetings for the London Olympic Games, and managed international media relations and strategy for the Olympic organising committee.

IOC endorses historic Paris-LA Olympic Games plan for unstable times

While Nobel Laureates represent advancements in humanity and the Oscars spotlight outstanding movies, casts and crews, the Olympics stands alone as the world’s biggest and most sought after peacetime event, and the process of selecting cities to host the Games has become a fixture on the international calendar, attracting world-wide interest and attention as cities compete for the votes of International Olympic Committee (IOC) members to stage the most glittering prize in global sport.

Competition between cities is particularly intense in the final countdown to voting day, with international celebrities and political leaders typically enlisted in last minute lobbying to win IOC favour. Former US President Barak Obama and First Lady Michelle, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and others including Henry Kissinger, have all attended final presentations, following in the footsteps of former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, one of the first national leaders to address the IOC, and helping Sydney to win the vote to stage 2000 Olympic Games.

The vote by IOC members in Lima overnight formally awarding the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games to Paris and Los Angeles respectively, was filled with drama and urgency of a different kind – to secure Olympic Games cities.

While the occasion may have been more ceremonial than celebratory, in contrast to the grandeur of previous host city election galas and gatherings, lacking in celebrities and political heavyweights, as managed by the IOC to reflect the fragility and austerity of the current times, the Lima vote was also historic – for the first time, the bid outcome was preordained rather than going to a final preferred city vote of IOC members.

The new dual Games approach, led and developed by IOC President Thomas Bach and IOC Vice Presidents, including John Coates, is designed to give the Olympic Movement time to stabilise and reform the host city selection process that has pushed the Olympics close to the brink as the pool of cities seeking to host the Games continues to shrink.

The consecutive 2024-28 Games announcement to Paris and LA – cities that have each hosted the Games twice before – signals a new and more conservative era within the Olympic Movement after the disappointments of Sochi and Rio Games, and is likely to steer the Olympics away from new cities and territories in the short term at least, and back to cities and regions with more stable social, political and economic environments and proven expertise and infrastructure for major events. This includes North America, Australasia, and western Europe.

This will help to protect the integrity of the Olympic Games experience and values until global conditions improve and become more stable and predictable for delivering major international events.

The formal awarding of the 2024 and 2028 Games marks a new era for the world-wide Olympic Movement, which has more member nations and territories than the United Nations.

The 2024-28 Games deal with Paris and LA recognises that the traditional bid model is no longer fit for purpose in the continuing global uncertainty, marked by terrorism, low economic growth, civil wars and tides of mass migration, which have changed conditions and community and financial priorities of potential bid cities.

The new double Games plan ratified in Lima sees the IOC executive taking greater control of the bidding process, which has produced a number of host cities that have failed to deliver Games conditions and experiences promised in Candidature files and manifestos, threatening the aura and image of the Olympic Games.

Following Games in Sochi, corrupted by systematic doping programmes and record high Games and infrastructure costs, and the problem plagued planning of the Rio Games which included delayed, polluted and often empty venues, the new dual Games approach unveiled in Lima is also designed to reduce the risk of staging the Games in volatile and unstable regions and cities.

With conditions on the Korean Peninsula continuing to deteriorate, threatening the Pyeonchang 2018 Winter Games – and even the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games in the longer term – as North Korea continues to rapidly develop a growing arsenal of nuclear missiles, the decision to award the Games simultaneously to Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028 will see the Olympics return to former host cities in Europe and the United States, providing shelter for the Games in uncertain times.

The parallel planning of the 2024-2028 Games also provides the Olympic Movement with the potential to swap and reverse the 2024-28 Games sites in unforeseen circumstances.

The dual Games announcement in Lima heralds the most profound change ever to the bidding process, which has been central to the evolution of the Olympics as the world’s premier and most popular global event.

As the Games has grown and globalised, the host city selection process morphed into a beauty pagent for cities queuing to stage the Olympics.

Designed originally to select locations with the necessary facilities to stage Olympic sporting competitions and protect the welfare of athletes, the selection process also showcases the sporting culture and wider capabilities and features of host cities on a global scale.

The 2012 Olympic Games cycle was the high point of this traditional bidding process, producing a bid campaign that engaged the world like never before as London, New York, Paris, Madrid and Moscow promoted Games blueprints for sport in iconic city landscapes and locations.

Never before had such a galaxy of the world’s leading cities competed against each other for Olympic Games, creating global headlines in a series of spectacular presentations that featured national and international leaders, including the British and French Prime Ministers, global sports super stars such as David Beckham, and internationally admired and respected figures such as the late Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nelson Mandela, along with stunning city skylines, landmarks and sports settings as bid teams criss-crossed the continents to make their case.

Driven by sport, under the direction of Bid chairman, Seb Coe and British Olympic Association President, Sir Craig Reedie, and supported by Jowell and former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, London’s bid provided the vision and foundations for Games that would unite the nation and the world through spectacular sport, inspire a generation of young people and deliver positive life changing community benefits and legacies.

The 2012 Games process proved that good Games develop from well managed bids and cities with strong political and public support.

Subsequent Olympic controversies have hit the bid process with gale force. London’s come-from-behind victory was too close to call, in contrast to Rio’s surprise comfortable victory four years later in Copenhagen, which is now the subject of vote buying allegations and investigations involving former Rio bid and organising committee leader, Carlos Nuzman, who denies all allegations of impropriety or wrong doing.

The scandals also include investigations into possible bribery in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games bid, while expanding Games venue, construction, accommodation, transport, and infrastructure costs have also alarmed cities.

The dwindling number of bid cities reached a crisis point in the current bid cycle as Boston, Hamburg, Rome and Budapest were all forced to withdraw due to a lack of community and political support, and the 2024 Olympic Bid cycle became less of a race and competition than game of survival.

The dual awarding of the Games in Paris and Los Angeles will also provide athletes, international sports federations, National Olympic Committees, sponsors, and broadcasters with greater planning certainty.

Staging the Olympic Games, the biggest event on the planet, is more difficult than ever in these troubled times, and moving forward the IOC will need to develop more independent and detailed systems of knowledge across all key areas of potential host cities and nations in relation to the Games, including public support, economic development and growth, transport, international trade and security relations, and internal and external defence systems and alliances, key areas for Games success in the current era.

This will help to ensure that future Games cities are not selected on incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information.

The IOC is hoping the new dual Paris-LA Games plan will restore confidence in the Games by showcasing the planning, delivery and impact of the Games in two of the world’s great cities.

About the contributor

Michael Pirrie is an international communications and media relations adviser and commentator on the Olympic Games and major events. He led London’s international media communications programme for the 2012 Olympic Games against Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid. Michael was media advisor to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Organising Committee, international communications adviser to the Budapest 2024 Olympic Games Bid Committee.

The IOC in Lima – The inside story of the preordained Paris-LA Games Plan

Prolonged global instability, growing Games costs, and allegations of corruption swirling around the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games bids have marked the end of the traditional Olympic Games host city selection model, and set the stage for the IOC’s new, preordained Paris-LA Games Plan.

Before she recommended that the Blair Government support the bid for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Baroness Tessa Jowell, made a low key visit to IOC headquarters in Lausanne for a candid meeting with then IOC President Jacques Rogge, that would prove pivotal to the future of the British capital, the Olympic Movement and world sport.

Jowell, careful, committed and passionate in her enthusiasm for the London Olympic Games, wanted to know whether a view had settled within the IOC and wider Olympic Movement that the Games should go to Paris in 2012, prompting the meeting with Rogge, who confirmed that the location for the Olympic Games was not pre-ordained, and would be an open competition that the IOC would be pleased to see London participate in.

The meeting with Rogge dispelled all doubts and gave Jowell the confidence to inform Cabinet that London’s Olympic bid was winnable.

More than a decade after losing the 2012 Olympics to London, Paris will host the 2024 Games following a remarkable historic juxtaposition at the IOC Session in Lima, where for the first time the bid outcome was preordained.

The new dual Games approach led and developed by IOC President Thomas Bach and IOC Vice Presidents including John Coates, is designed to give the Olympic Movement time to stabilise and reform the host city selection process that has pushed the Olympics close to the brink.

The formal awarding of the 2024 and 2028 Games consecutively to Paris and Los Angeles recognises that the traditional bid model is no longer fit for purpose in the current era of prolonged global uncertainty and changing conditions, priorities and tight finances of potential bid cities, and is vulnerable to potential manipulation.

The dual Games announcement in Lima heralds the most profound change in decades to the bidding process, which has been central to the evolution of the Olympics as the world’s premier and most popular and sought after global event.

Designed originally to select locations with the necessary facilities to stage Olympic sporting competitions and protect the welfare of athletes, the bidding process has also come to showcase the sporting culture and wider capabilities and features of bid cities on a global scale.

As the Games has grown and globalised, the host city selection process morphed into a beauty pagent for cities queuing to stage the Olympics, placing the culture, heritage, architecture, civil achievements, tourist attractions and sporting fields of the cities in the global spotlight of the Games.

The 2012 Olympic Games cycle was the high point of this bidding process, producing a bid campaign that engaged the world like never before as London, New York, Paris, Madrid and Moscow promoted Games blueprints for sport in iconic city landscapes and locations.

Never before had such a galaxy of leading world cities competed against each other for Olympic Games, creating global headlines in a series of spectacular presentations that featured national and international leaders, including the British and French Prime Ministers, global sports super stars such as David Beckham, and internationally admired and respected figures such as the late Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nelson Mandela, along with stunning city skylines, landmarks and sports settings as bid teams criss-crossed the continents to make their case.

Driven by sport, under the direction of Bid chairman, Seb Coe and British Olympic Association President, Sir Craig Reedie, and supported by Jowell and former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, London’s bid provided the vision and foundations for Games that would unite the nation and the world through spectacular sport, inspire a generation of young people and deliver positive life changing community benefits and legacies, exactly as London promised.

The 2012 Games process proved that good Games develop from well managed bids and cities with strong political and public support.

Subsequent Olympic controversies have hit the bid process with the force of Hurricane Irma.

London’s come-from-behind victory was too close to call, in contrast to Rio’s surprise comfortable victory four years later in Copenhagen, which is now the subject of vote buying allegations and investigations involving former Rio bid and organising committee leader, Carlos Nuzman, who denies all allegations of impropriety or wrong doing.

The scandals – which also include investigations into possible bribery in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games bid – along with expanding Games venue, construction, accommodation, transport, and infrastructure costs – have alarmed cities.

The dwindling number of bid cities reached a crisis point in the current bid cycle as Boston, Hamburg, Rome and Budapest were all forced to withdraw due to a lack of community and political support, and the 2024 Olympic Bid cycle became less of a race and competition than game of survival.

The new double Games plan formalised in Lima sees the IOC executive taking greater control of the bidding process, which has produced a number of host cities that have failed to deliver Games conditions and experiences promised in Candidature files and manifestos, threatening the aura and values of the Olympic Games and reducing the pool of potential host cities.

Some of Rio’s Olympic venues have fallen into a state of disrepair

Following Games in Sochi, corrupted by systematic doping programmes and record high Games and infrastructure costs, and the problem plagued planning of the Rio Games which included delayed, polluted and often empty venues, the new dual Games approach is designed to reduce the risk of staging the Games in volatile and unstable regions and cities.

With conditions on the Korean Peninsula continuing to deteriorate, threatening the Pyeonchang 2018 Winter Games – and even the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games – as North Korea continues to rapidly develop a growing arsenal of nuclear missiles, the allocation of the Olympic Games to Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028 will see the Games return to former host cities in Europe and the United States, providing shelter for the Games in uncertain times.

The parallel planning of the 2024-2028 Games also provides the Olympic Movement with the potential to swap and reverse the 2024-28 Games sites in unforeseen circumstances .

The dual awarding of the Games in Paris and Los Angeles will also provide athletes, international sports federations, National Olympic Committees, sponsors, and broadcasters will greater planning certainty as the body of nations and cities with the interest and capability to host the Olympics shrinks in the current global environment.

The new and more conservative attitude in the Olympic Movement towards Games cities after the disappointments of Sochi and Rio is likely to steer the Games away from potential new territories in the short term at least, and back to cities and nations with more stable social and political environments and proven expertise, experience and infrastructure for major events, including North America, Australasia, and western Europe.

This will help to protect the integrity of the Olympic Games experience and brand until global conditions improve and become more stable and predictable for planning and delivering international major events.

In addition to the affordability of the Games, the cost of bidding has become too much for certain cities, and an expense that many cities can’t justify amid a mounting list of new services and facilities as funding priorities for local communities ahead of mega events.

The IOC will need to form closer relationships with potential bid cities to help address concerns about Games costs and requirements and help to offset and subsidise costs where possible.

Staging the Olympic Games, the biggest event on the planet, is more difficult than ever in these troubled times, and moving forward the IOC will need to develop more detailed and independent systems of knowledge across all key areas of potential host cities and nations relevant to the Games – from sports spectator profiles and preferences, city power supplies, construction costs and timelines and especially public support, robust and reliable economic development, international trade and security relations, internal and external defence systems and alliances, key new functional areas for Games success.

This will help to ensure that future Games cities are not selected on incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information or promises than cannot be met.

The IOC is hoping the new dual Games plan will restore confidence in the delivery of the Games in two of the world’s great cities in Paris and LA, an outcome, which, unlike the dual 2024-28 Olympic rescue plan itself, cannot be preordained.

About the contributor

Michael Pirrie is an international communications and media relations adviser and commentator on the Olympic Games and major events. He led London’s international media communications programme for the 2012 Olympic Games against Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid, and was international communications adviser to the Budapest 2024 Olympic Games Bid.