London leads last global goodbye to world’s favourite sporting hero Usain Bolt at IAAF Championships that shock, captivate & revive athletics appeal globally

London hosts happy and almost glorious world athletics spectacular at sold out Olympic stadium as sport begins to emerge from doping’s dark shadows with record crowds in new era under Sebastian Coe

While happiness can be an elusive and fleeting experience, prompting ever increasing studies into what brings joy and meaning in life, Londoners and visitors from across the world seem to have found some happiness again in these troubled times back at the Olympic Stadium in the capital’s east, returning to the scene if not the exact same surroundings of those fabled London 2012 Olympic Games, like time travellers seeking to reconnect with special moments, memories and places from the past.

All roads, tube lines and flight paths across the capital, Europe and beyond led back to Stratford, with athletics at the cross roads following a series of doping and corruption scandals and in need of some sporting salvation and redemption.

There was no Doctor Who waiting at the local phone booth or Captain Kirk on the landing deck to greet the Olympic time travellers. This was another time if not place, different but still familiar enough on arrival to feel something special was about to happen, the experience beginning again with teams of friendly, energetic and well informed volunteers who welcomed fans from across the UK and the world back to the future of their sports.

NEW AGE OF ATHLETICS

The London 2017 championships went against conventions and expectations that athletics was declining further in international reach and appeal and provided a lifeline to one of the world’s oldest and most important sports.

 

This was athletics like never before, beamed on giant video screens and boards that created a concert-like atmosphere inside the vast London Olympic Stadium that had been modified to bring action and athletes closer than ever before in a venue that many experts consider the best in the world.

This was not traditional stadium sport and the fans loved what they saw on the field, track and massive video screens – a new and cleverly choreographed sports entertainment experience as the routine ‘Call Up’ room for the athletes became the new Green Room of sport.

Athletes were welcomed onto the stadium track by announcers, fireworks, plumes of flame and booming applause as if entering a new giant outdoor sports variety TV show called ‘The World’s Got Talent.’ One almost expected Robbie Williams to appear with a rendition of ‘Let Me Entertain You’ and Simon Cowell to hand out some medals.

Instead, it was the athletes who did all the entertaining in partnership with the crowds.

London 2017 produced electrifying sport and athletes, and showed that sport is still one of the most inclusive and unifying forms of human expression and activity on the planet.

The human opera that surrounds elite sport in the pursuit of life defining dreams, London 2017 was a spectacular symphony of sport and the human spirit, with uplifting displays of excellence and grace under enormous pressure, expectation and often extreme adversity, as if conjured from a sports science fiction story.

These real-life scripts included performances of high speed movement, endurance, strength, bravery, resilience and daring imagination.

London 2017 resembled a live, non-stop sports action-drama movie full of twists and turns that rivalled the giant pretzel shaped Orbit structure that overlooked the London Stadium.

Some of the plots seemed too extreme to believe possible like the hero of the championship, Usain Bolt, an athlete so singularly gifted that he seemed to come from a galaxy far away collapsed on the track in his last race, resembling David Bowie’s Man Who Fell To Earth.

Another athlete defied illness and the system to qualify and reach the finals of the demanding 200 metres sprint, while an unheralded American teenage college student beat the world’s fastest man.

London 2017 made for compelling viewing on television and constant conversation online, on Youtube, Twitter and on the buses, at tube stations and in restaurants, homes, offices, playgrounds, and building sites across the capital and international centres as the home and competing nations celebrated their athletes and their stories that went beyond lap times, splits, heights and distances travelled and jumped and captivated and engaged audiences worldwide.

Stories like that of Australian Sally Pearson, a unique time travelling athlete who returned to the London Stadium after recovering from almost career-ending injuries and repeated history when she won the 100 metres hurdles – the same event she won five years earlier at the London 2012 Olympic Games, this time perhaps with legendary Australian Olympic sprinting icon Betty Cuthbert, who passed away earlier in the championships, on her shoulder guiding Pearson over the hurdles in a technically faultless performance that inspired the London crowds and her home nation several time zones away, highlighting sport’s unique capacity to move and unite people and places.

CROWDED HOUSE

If athletics is in crisis, the crowds told another story. On the opening weekend of England’s Premier League season, the world’s most competitive, popular and highly paid domestic football competition, the IAAF championships drew the biggest crowds in football obsessed London.

This followed more than a week of sold out sessions in the 60,000 capacity stadium, totalling 700,00 paid for tickets, almost unparalleled for any recent major sporting event anywhere in the world. Athletics was back in the game.

The athletics crowd had its own story. A multi-generational family friendly audience of parents, children, teenagers, students, and couples through to elderly and disabled fans who filled stadium stands – significant and diverse sections of the community seeking a different sporting experience that athletics has long provided but whom the sports marketing industry had overlooked in recent times, and whom the IAAF has targeted with new sports presentation and entertainment formats and technologies to bring new fans and new relevance to the sport.

This was not Premier League football but it was premier sport, and there was much about these championships that was beautiful, including the unlikely win by host Team GB in the men’s 4×100 metes men’s sprint relay after a history of dropped batons and up against the powerful Americans – the win perhaps equivalent to Brazil’s last-gasp penalty goal victory against great rivals Germany in the Rio 2016 Olympic football competition.

If these championships were about the future of athletics – with implications for the Olympic Movement where athletics is the premier sport – they were also an event for and of our times.

With the world on a rhetorical war footing, the star of the London show, Bolt, was a human missile of speed and force for goodwill and respect towards others as were fellow athletes.

This was a sporting event with messages and values added, transcending sport and speaking to wider issues of our times.

In the growing “Country First’’ culture of rising nationalism, the London Stadium crowds roared unconditional support and love for athletes competing from around the globe, and for countries as diverse as Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Congo, Syria and many others who sent teams to London, demonstrating the power of sport to break down barriers to better understanding of people and nations.

And in a period of changing immigration patterns and policies that have displaced millions of people, the athlete who had the biggest impact on these championships along with Bolt, was a refugee from Somalia, now one of the greatest Olympic and world champion distance runners of all time – Sir Mo Farah, who was separated from his twin brother in the escape to London as a child.

In additional to piercing crowd noise, the soundtrack to the championships included constant jeering of American sprinter, Justin Gatlin and not just because he beat Bolt in his 100 metres showpiece, but because Gatlin was a drugs cheat.

THE VALUES OF SPORT

While Bolt graciously defended Gatlin’s right to compete because he had served his penalty, helping to quell the drugs storm, the Gatlin backlash and crowd protests highlighted inconvenient truths about doping beyond Russia in other nations, signalling a hardening of public attitudes against doping across sports following Lance Armstrong’s doping operation, as elaborate, extreme and calculating in its own ways as the Russian doping systems.

Coe knows that public trust arrives on foot but can often leave quickly in a taxi – or black cab – and the leadership he has shown as new IAAF President in pushing for the temporary suspension of Russian athletes from international competition, including last year’s Rio Games, has helped to revive trust in athletics again.

The ban, supported by WADA, but controversial in Olympic circles at the time coming close to Rio, was described by IOC President Bach at the start of these IAAF championships in London as “courageous,’’ and has shown Coe and his IAAF Council colleagues to be on the right side of history after Russia’s athletics leader apologised recently for the first time for the doping scandal portrayed in the McLaren report, despite numerous previous denials from Russian authorities.

With a new anti-doping team and strategy in place in Russia to stop elaborate and extensive doping happening again, and new IAAF independent testing and integrity unit protocols and procedures, including a list of countries under close watch for possible doping activity, there is a new found sense of hope and optimism that the war on doping is turning in favour of clean athletes more than ever and may have even peaked.

The large crowds that turned out in London for the IAAF’s premier global event were significant, creating a theatre environment in the stadium that helped athletes to perform at exceptional levels, while also suggesting that credibility was returning to the sport, supported by record numbers of athletes, spectators, media interest, digital engagement and participation of more than 200 nations.

THE LAST WALTZ

While big crowds witnessed numerous inspiring and heart wrenching displays of endurance, speed and bravery inside the London Stadium, none was perhaps sadder or more moving that the world’s fastest man walking almost in slow motion and morphing into a his signature human lighting bolt pose for the world’s media and his beloved London fans one last time, stopping and lingering momentarily at the turn and final straight of the stadium track.

“I was saying goodbye to my events and tools… saying goodbye to everything. I almost cried,” Bolt said quietly at his final press conference which followed a last goodbye to the stadium where he became the first man in history to successfully defend the 100 metres Olympic gold medal title, after which fans departed into the London night upbeat and euphoric at being part of world history – just as many also felt on leaving the cauldron of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Bird’s Nest Stadium nearly 10 years ago when Bolt set the first of his almost unimaginable Olympic and world records.

Since then Bolt has almost single handedly rescued world sport from a crisis in corruption and doping with a series of once-in-a-lifetime drug-free performances that have brought about a revival of priorities and values in sport globally.

Of those electrifying performances, Bolt regards his 100 metres sprint victory at the 2015 IAAF world championships in Beijing as the most important – the event in which he defeated doping offender Gatlin in a race that many believed saved the soul of sport.

“I prove you can be great without doping,” Bolt told the media conference in which he gently expounded homespun universal thoughts about lessons in life as the fastest man in history that could also provide the forward to a common sense guide to success in life beyond sport.

Bolt advocates a tougher approach against doping, including lifetime bans for athletes who “go out of the way to cheat to be a better athlete.”

Bolt says he has no bucket list, but in initial retirement he is looking forward “just to be free…I’ve been doing it since 10; all I know is track.”

BOLT ON LEGACY

And while Bolt’s ability to do things that have never been possible before has been admired and celebrated globally, he now wants to party a little himself, relax and spend time with friends and family.

Bolt wants his legacy to be for children to know that they can be great but says it is important to instil in children from a young age what it takes to be great, especially “hard work, no matter what’s going on.”

And while vulnerable to injury and defeat after winning an unprecedented three gold medals at the Olympic Games in Rio for the third consecutive time at the Olympic Games, Bolt said he has no regrets about competing this year at the World Championships in London despite suffering his first ever loss in a global championship, and stayed on for his fans.

“My fans wanted to see me for one more year…they kept me going …success would not have been possible without the fans.”

Unfortunately for those many legions of admirers Bolt confirmed that the London 2017 championships was his last event, before leaving the press centre for the last time to an ovation of applause and respect from world-wide media for whom Bolt was a constant source of front page fascination and excitement every time he went near a track.

THANK YOU & GOODBYE – A WORLD WITHOUT BOLT

While the London 2012 Olympic Games may have revived the host nation’s belief in itself, the organisers of the London 2017 World Athletic Championships hope that the event has started to restore belief and confidence in the sport again.

Coe’s rescue and reform of the sport that has been at the centre of his life since childhood, much like Bolt, remain on track and are being closely followed by other world governing bodies also seeking new ways to maintain the reach and relevance of their sports in our ever rapidly changing global society.

The IAAF will need to find new ways to build on Bolt’s triumphs and turn the best athletes into new stars of the future who can relate and communicate in ways that are meaningful to the lives and landscapes of young people.

It will also need to continue to innovate and adapt the event heavy athletics schedules to get athletes closer and more accessible to spectators in the venues and on mobile and social media, as well as in urban settings closer to young people.

London organisers were highly fortunate to have Bolt and selling tickets will be a lot harder in Doha, the next host city, without him – like removing Adele or Ed Sheeran from the top of the bill.

The London experience, however, has provided the momentum for Coe’s sporting revolution to continue and develop on stronger foundations without Bolt, who hopes to continue working with Coe to revive the sport that has been so central to both their lives.

For nearly a decade Bolt has thrilled the planet with his superhuman speed encouraging the world to think big and do great things, and providing a reassuring presence globally and in the lives of many people.

As Bolt departs, the only question that remains is when or if we will ever see the likes of such a singularly gifted athlete and person again. While Muhammad Ali may always be regarded as the greatest, Bolt will be the fastest.

Bolt has moved at the speed of sound in human terms, but he may not be able to out run the sound of worldwide applause and ovations that might never be accorded to another athlete.

Details of Bolt’s immediate future seem uncertain but with his natural showmanship skills, and a futuristic costume like the one worn by Australian Olympic champion Catharine Freeman at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, a role in the Marvel superhero movie franchise may be possible down the track.

In the years ahead as the mythology surrounding Bolt evolves, we may all become time travellers as we recall the happy and almost impossible times and triumphs in Olympic and World Athletic Championships cities and venues around the world of the man who has travelled fastest in time – Lightning Usain Bolt.

Michael Pirrie is a London based international communications and media advisor and commentator on major events and world sport including the Olympic Games. He was executive adviser to the chairman of the London 2012 Olympic Games Sebastian Coe and led the international media campaign for the London Olympic Bid against Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid.

Usain Bolt’s shock defeat paves the way for new hardline approach in war on doping

As a David Bowie song once told us, its all about Sound and Vision, but there seemed a strange disconnect between the two and what viewers experienced on screens of all shapes and sizes as they followed the opening weekend of the IAAF World Athletic Championships from the London Olympic Park, seeing and hearing events that seemed incongruous, but which like those wonderful London 2012 Olympic Games, will change world sport, only this time for dramatically different reasons.

The capacity crowd inside the London Olympic Park stadium also seemed unsure about what was happening as the world’s greatest athlete of modern times, Usain Bolt, walked slowly towards third place on the medal podium, and would need to be redirected by one of the volunteers trackside to his customary place to collect a gold medal at the centre of the podium, a position that Bolt had come to own by living and performing at the centre of the sporting universe.

But this time would be different and for the first and last time in his stellar career, Bolt had been defeated in the final of an elite global world athletic championship, and the world could not believe what it was seeing as the bronze medal was placed around Bolt’s neck by IAAF President Sebastian Coe.

The chorus of cheers that greeted Bolt was thunderous and never before had the bronze medal recipient been so loudly and noisily applauded.

And never had the gold medal winner, in this case the American Justin Gatlin, been greeted with such derision by a crowd upon receiving his medal, completing one of the most dramatic weekends and moments in modern sport.

This was an unparalleled and unscripted drama of thwarted ambition and talent every bit as compelling as a Shakesperean tragedy produced in one of London’s famous West End theatres – the second act in a drama that began on the evening before as the ageing athlete and doping cheat Gatlin stole the crown and mantle of world’s fastest man from Bolt, the retiring sprint king and legend.

Gatlin took just under 10 seconds to transform the mood inside the London Olympic stadium from celebration to controversy as the capacity 60,000 strong crowd watched in shock, anger and disbelief as Gatlin and fellow American sprint sensation Christian Coleman relegated Bolt to third place in the 100m final, arguably the pinnacle and single most glittering and prestigious event in world sport.

Gatlin’s win was cloaked in bitter irony as well as controversy. Bolt’s career as the greatest clean athlete of his generation was not supposed to end in defeat like this, and certainly not at the feet of a disgraced sprinter whose doping history had contributed to the current mistrust and malaise of elite sport, and which Bolt himself had warned would kill athletics on the eve of these eagerly awaited IAAF World Championships.

This was not the outcome that the sold out stadium audience had come to witness, hoping instead for a repeat of the magic from the London 2012 Olympic Games when Bolt became the first athlete to defend an Olympic 100m gold medal inside the same stadium.

Instead Gatlin’s surprise victory killed off a fairytale ending to Bolt’s legendary career and has since generated global attention and outrage in athletics and sport more generally.

The unexpected defeat inflicted by Gatlin on Bolt lifted the aura of invincibility that has surrounded the Jamaican since he arrived like a comet blazing a trail across the sporting universe with a procession of once-in-a-lifetime performances that captured the world’s imagination beginning at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, earning global respect and admiration along the way.

While many contemporary sporting greats like Roger Federer have lost Grand Slam finals, never before had Bolt been beaten in the final of a global sprinting championship.

The circumstances surrounding Gatlin’s unlikely win as the fastest athlete in the world, in his mid thirties, have raised more questions than answers to the dilemma about the position and future of drug cheats in elite sport.

Usain Bolt is one of the world’s most popular and respected people and athletes on the planet and his shock defeat has opened up a new front in the war on doping, reviving debate about the eligibility of athletes who have doped to compete again.

The Gatlin win has also prompted more calls for lifetime bans on athletes who have doped, despite possible legal difficulties on penalties that could be an unfair restraint of trade for career athletes.

Nor was Gatlin’s win the outcome that world sport’s governing bodies and figures at the IOC, IAAF and WADA had wanted in the fight to restore confidence in sport’s credibility among the public, sports fans, sponsors, broadcasters, viewers and especially young people.

While Gatlin and many other doping offenders have ridden on the coattails of Bolt – the world’s most successful and decorated elite athlete who has never tested positive for a banned substance – the Gatlin win transformed Bolt’s farewell finale from an occasion of celebration to controversy.

This was a bad result for Bolt and an even worse result for athletics in the battle to clean up the image and reputation of the sport with a series of sweeping new reforms introduced by IAAF President Sebastian Coe to contain and curb corruption and doping.

While Bolt has blamed his lacklustre performances at these World Championships on poor starts and problems getting out of the blocks, his surprise defeat has raised more questions about the regulation of athletes who have a history of doping and cheating, especially given the IAAF’s ongoing ban on Russian athletes involved in the state sanction government doping programes.

While some local sports administrators may have quietly questioned the heavy focus on doping and its relevance to sports fans in the lead up to these London World Championships, the loud and constant jeering that has greeted Gatlin’s every performance so far in London sends a loud, clear and unmistakable message to those sports administrators that the public will no longer tolerate cheating in sport. Nor will they tolerate a soft approach to doping and corruption.

Sports fans have actively protested against Gatlin’s win and presence at these championships, a development almost unprecedented in recent times, and instead of leaving uplifted and inspired, many fans poured out of the London Olympic stadium feeling disappointed, dejected and even robbed by Gatlin’s win as they journeyed home from the nearby Stratford tube station.

The anti-Gatlin jeers in the London Olympic stadium following Bolt’s final individual 100m and medal ceremony have sparked protests of support for Bolt who many believed had saved the soul of sport when he defeated Gatlin, a dual doping offender, at the same IAAF world championships in Beijing just two years ago.

Indeed, the chorus of applause that followed Bolt on what resembled a moral as well as career victory lap after the shock race result formed part of a long wave goodbye to the athletic great from Londoners who have embraced Bolt as an adopted son, and could not have been in starker contrast to Gatlin’s almost invisible and muted post-race presence.

The timing of Gatlin’s win is also a set back for the IAAF as it looks to fill the enormous gap that Bolt leaves on the world stage – a gap that Gatlin will struggle to fill as world champion but which might be filled in the years ahead by his teenage countryman and potential heir apparent to Bolt, Coleman, whose performances and demeanour have been impressive.

Like the great Muhammad Ali, however, Bolt’s footsteps may never be filled, not just because of the speed at which he moved but also because Bolt has taken a road less travelled in modern sport.

The heroism, bravery and loneliness of Bolt’s unique and courageous journey to the summit of global sport were perhaps ironically never better highlighted than the circumstances in which he lost his very last race.

Bolt may have lived his public life in sport in sub 10 second time frames, but his legacy of achievements, inspiration and memories will last for generations. Perhaps athletic officials might play David Bowie’s Heroes anthem if Bolt enters the London Olympic stadium for the final time as expected next weekend for the 4x100m sprint relay.

Michael Pirrie is a London based international communications and major events consultant and commentator who advised on the City of London’s successful bid for the 2017 IAAF World Athletic Championships, and worked as Executive Adviser to the Chairman of the London 2012 Olympic Games Committee, Sebastian Coe.  He most recently worked for the Budapest 2024 Olympic Games Bid.

Do you want to contribute to iSportconnect? Click here to get involved!

The first shall be last and the last shall be first – Usain Bolt and the last goodbye to the world’s greatest athlete

As London prepares to lead a global farewell to Usain Bolt at the IAAF World Athletic Championships, Michael Pirrie looks at how athletics, the premier Olympic sport, is preparing for life after Bolt, and the landmark reforms adopted by IAAF president Seb Coe and his Council to tackle doping and make athletics more appealing and entertaining to young people

The positions of last and first do not sit easily together in world sport or society, located at opposite ends of the spectrum of human achievement.

Nor do associations with being last in anything usually generate world-wide headlines, interest or fascination – unless it involves Usain Bolt, the fastest moving person on the planet, competing in the last races of his career over the next 10 days in London; 10 days that may shake the world of sport.

This will be a sporting event and farewell like no other in recent times, with Bolt’s final races generating global attention, like the moon missions and landings once did, in anticipation of something extraordinary happening.

Bolt has already made a lasting impression on the world – an athletic legend and showman who is perhaps almost uniquely gifted and accomplished enough to share the same space and stage as Muhammad Ali, the greatest of all time.

Bolt is the best and most important sprinter in world history for the past century, standing alongside the great Jesse Owens. Bolt and Owens have both pushed the boundaries of human ambition and excellence to new and previously unattainable levels, with Owens capturing four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Games in the 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100m, a feat that has eluded even Bolt.

And like Ali, Owens and Bolt’s achievements have taken on a significance wider than sport in helping to highlight and address important issues in the cultures of their times, demonstrating the power of sport as a catalyst for change in society, a key focus of the IOC under current President Thomas Bach.

As a black athlete, Owens demolished Hitler’s theories of white superiority, while Ali also addressed racism, and social injustice, religious freedom and human rights. Meanwhile, Bolt has helped protect clean athletes and the credibility of sport in the current era of doping and corruption in sport.

London, a city synonymous for famous farewells, where stars of stage, screen, song and sport have often taken their final bows, bouquets and curtain calls, is preparing a grand goodbye to Bolt, who once broke three world records in one championship.

Bolt’s return to the Olympic city, stadium and park in London, now known as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, where he became an Olympic legend five years ago as the first athlete to defend a 100 metres Olympic gold medal, has become a royal occasion and the talk of the town.

There have even been wild unconfirmed rumours that a tall athlete-looking man resembling Bolt was recently detained for a short period of time – less than 10 seconds – after he was clocked by radar speed walking at 60 kilometres per hour in a 5 kilometre pedestrian zone.

The former president of the IAAF, Lamine Diack, however, has been detained for much longer and will not be attending these World Athletic Championships following a series of internal bribery and cover up allegations linked to doping activity that have plunged the sport into crisis.

Bolt has never tested positive. His global popularity and performances have saved the credibility and reputation of sport worldwide, proving that athletes can win and produce extraordinary performances without doping.

However, there have been difficult, dark and emotional times in the countdown to the 2017 IAAF World Athletic Championships for London and the UK with the Manchester bombings, London Bridge and Westminster attacks and the Grenfell Tower inferno.

These have also been difficult times for Bolt too, following the death in a crash of his close friend the British high jump champion, Germaine Mason, in whose memory Bolt will dedicate his last races here in London.

Bolt loves London, a city he regards as his second home, and he loves the London crowds and Olympic stadium, where he ran the second fastest 100 metres in history at the 2012 Olympic Games, and hopes are running high that Bolt can once again lift the mood and spirits.

The London setting for Bolt’s final farewell comes courtesy of London 2012 Olympic Games boss, Sebastian Coe, who came to the rescue of the bid to bring the 2017 IAAF World Championships to London, when, amid fears that rival host city Doha was closing the gap on London, Coe rallied proven and respected bid performers Sir Craig Reedie, Olympian Denise Lewis and other influencers including former Olympics Minister Sir Hugh Robertson and London Mayor Boris Johnson to help bid organisers get London over the line.

Bringing the 2017 IAAF World Athletic Championships to London was vital to the success of the London 2012 Olympic Games, showing that the facilities built for London 2012 would have a legacy and future after the Games, and as he left the Monaco Hotel after the IAAF delegates voted for London, Coe’s phone went into meltdown with calls and texts from world sport and Olympic and political leaders including former IOC president, Jacques Rogge, Executive Director Gilbert Feli, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and many others who understood the wider significance of London’s win. That win has taken on a much greater significance since for Coe and world sport.

Sports fans, sports leaders and politicians worldwide will be attending the IAAF World Championships in London – the biggest global sporting event since the Rio Olympic Games – where new reforms pioneered and introduced under Coe’s direction as new IAAF President will be introduced for the first time, providing a much needed new model to address doping and corruption in world sport.

The reforms include Coe’s new Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which has deployed an extensive pre-Games intelligence led anti-doping campaign to eliminate cheating athletes before the World Championships start, and could, along with other measures, result in the cleanest ever elite global sporting event.

Athletics is the biggest and most important of the Olympic sports, drawing in the biggest crowds and revenues for Games organisers, and as the foundation Olympic sport whose disciplines and skills, ranging from running and throwing to jumping, underpin most other sport activity, the impact of Coe’s new approach to stemming corruption will be closely monitored by sports governing bodies and federations worldwide.

There is early signs that the ‘No Retreat-No Surrender’ approach to doping adopted by Coe and fellow British sporting leaders and advocates – including WADA president, Sir Craig Reedie, retiring IPC president, Sir Philip Craven and IOC member and Olympic medallist Adam Pengily, along with IOC leaders including John Coates, whose memorable description of Russia’s anti-doping system as “rotten to the core” still resonates with sports fans globally – may be starting to shift the momentum in favour of more radical change and reforms and restore confidence.

These signs include the biggest crowds and ticket sales ever for the IAAF World Athletic Championships, totalling 700,000 paid for tickets that will fill the former Olympic Stadium to capacity; a slew of new partnership, broadcast, sponsorship and service provider deals in recent months and interest in athletics.

Coe is also preparing for the world of athletics without Bolt with a new formula and look for the IAAF World Championships that will be on display for the first time in London, including shorter, sharper sessions, an increase in night events, and new in-stadium formats for sports presentation and entertainment.

These changes and early signs of progress at last could provide the IAAF, IOC and sport in general with a much needed opportunity to fight back and create a new narrative around the credibility and challenges of doping in sport.

Bolt has an aura that can transform massive sports stadiums into intimate theatre like experiences of emotion and drama much like those encountered in London’s famous West End venues, even as the eyes of the entire city, nation and world focus on Bolt’s every move as if he is the only person moving in a 60,000 seat stadium filled to capacity.

When Bolt emerges onto the Olympic Park track, Londoners will lift the new roof off the stadium in a crescendo of emotion, excitement, noise and applause that will be heard and felt around the world in a tribute and gesture of gratitude to the Jamaican, the likes of which has never been seen or experienced in a stadium or world sport before.

And this time Bolt will not be able to quieten the crowds or keep a lid on their love for what he has done for sport and for the world through sport, helping to keep their faith in values of sport and humanity alive. The cheers and encores could last for hours and the memories for much, much longer.

Vale Usain Bolt. Take a Bow. Take a Million Bows.

Michael Pirrie was international media relations advisor and manager for the London 2017 IAAF World Athletics Bid, and executive adviser to the Chairman of the London 2012 Games Organising Committee, Sebastian Coe and led the international media campaign for the London 2012 Bid Committee against Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid. He was most recently international media relations adviser for the Budapest 2024 Olympic Games Bid.

Dual 2024-28 award announcement set to revitalise games as Olympic Movement reaches crossroads in 21st Century tale of change and survival

Era of Olympic bid spectaculars set to end as new age of reason over risk dawns for Olympic movement in troubled global times

The IOC is poised to unveil landmark changes to how cities are selected to stage the Olympic Games in 2024 and 2028 and beyond. Michael Pirrie looks at the forces driving change to the Olympic host city selection process, arguably the most important responsibility of the Olympic Movement.

The ghosts and great expectations of Charles Dickens and of Olympic Games and bid cities past, present and future swirled vividly around the SportAccord convention in Denmark earlier this year as the 2024 Games race tightened, and changes to the Olympic scaffolding around which much of the drama, mystery and mythology surrounding the selection of Olympic host cities – like conclaves and plumes of white smoke that herald the arrival of new Popes – were debated and green lighted by Olympic leaders, insiders and influencers.

If the 2024-28 Olympic Games double announcement was the elephant in the room at SportAccord, then the current period of prolonged global uncertainty and risk now poses a major threat to traditional Olympic Games habitats in high performing city and urban venues and settings, which are increasingly threatened by rapid community change, global tensions and ideologically motivated and social media driven activist protest groups targeting potential Olympic host cities for political purposes.

The SportAccord discussions amongst Olympic sports federations and the high quality of masterplan presentations by Paris and Los Angeles, the two remaining cities in the 2024 Olympic Games race, set the stage for the most profound changes to the Olympic Games in decades – the awarding of two successive Olympic host cities at the same IOC Session, in Lima later this year.

Those discussions and masterplan details have evolved significantly since SportAccord and the dual 2024-28 award announcement looks set to be accepted by Olympic Movement leaders at a landmark meeting next week, paving the way for historic and sweeping changes to the Olympic host city bidding process.

The changes will also impact on the organisation, financing, delivery and promotion of the Games, including sponsor activity and host city revenues, and possibly ceremonies, torch relays and culture programs – much of the Olympic Games blueprint.

OLYMPIC TIPPING POINT

A dual Games announcement could not have been publicly discussed even a year ago, but the need for change amid growing concerns amongst cities worldwide about cost overruns and delays in Games preparations and returns on investments – much of which can be traced back to an out-dated host city selection process and host cities failing to deliver on bid book manifestos – have now reached a tipping point.

While such change will alter the natural laws and order of the Olympic universe as currently structured, the IOC leadership has been strategically scene setting and trailing the need for major change in Olympic bidding.

The case for a dual announcement of 2024 Games and 2028 Games at the IOC Session in September will be questioned by those with vested commercial and political interests in maintaining the status quo, but the need for change is vital in the current global environment – and the immediate future of the Olympic Games.

The decisive leadership shown by IOC President Thomas Bach and Vice-Presidents such as John Coates, plus other Olympic leaders, has been instrumental to the speed with which the IOC has responded to the threat posed to the Olympic Games in this new, dangerous and unpredictable world – and underlines the scale and urgency of this threat.

Amid dwindling numbers of potential bid cities, the IOC wants to showcase and stabilise the delivery of Olympic Games in two of the world’s most iconic cities in Paris and Los Angeles in 2024 and 2028, and both cities have proven they have the capacity and commitment to deliver the world’s biggest event.

TALES OF OLYMPIC CITIES & SURVIVAL

However, the contest between Paris and LA is much more than A Tale of Two Cities – it is also a story of the survival and protecting the world’s biggest, most sought after and most important global and community sporting event in this 21st century of constant, prolonged and dramatic change.

Mega international sporting events like the Olympic Games rely on a pipeline of countries and cities to host their events, which have declined in number in recent years.

But the global appeal of the Olympic Games continues to grow, with ever increasing revenues, expanding markets, higher broadcaster and digital viewing optics, online traffic and deeper digital engagement with young people.

These are significant achievements that confirm the unique global status and appeal of the Olympic Games in world society, the result also of astute marketing and management by the IOC of the Olympic Rings and other key assets that make the Games the word’s most recognisable and valued product and brand experience.

FRAGILE GAMES ENVIRONMENT

The global environment in which cities bid and prepare for the Olympic Games, however, has changed and become ever more threatening and unpredictable, even as South Korea counts down to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, the North Korea’s escalating nuclear missile development and testing programme casts a dark shadow over Games preparations and planning.

The current Olympic bidding system is not fit for purpose, especially in the current global climate, highlighted perhaps by the gathering of G-20 nation leaders at the weekend in the former Olympic bid city of Hamburg to discuss trade relations, the North Korea threat, terrorism, global finances and insecurity, and other issues vital to world peace and stability, plus major international events such as the Olympic Games.

While Paris and Los Angles have each delivered solid and passionate bids, matching each other round for round in this heavyweight Olympic bid cities contest, neither city has been able to deliver an innovative communications and marketing campaign creative enough to capture a consensus of international support, although both cities have shown that they have learnt key lessons from previous bid attempts.

Instead, speculation of a dual 2024-28 Games announcement has been the dominant narrative of this bid city cycle of attrition, which has seen Boston, Hamburg, Rome and Budapest all withdraw from contention amid local community concerns and political campaigns against the Olympic Games.

This has placed the selection process of Olympic cities under great scrutiny and strain.

Many recent host cities have failed to meet their bid promises and obligations and have staged Games that have disappointed, prompting the 2024 -2028 dual Games award. Sydney, Vancouver, and London stand out as hosts that have delivered on their visions and delivered extraordinary Games experiences that have enhanced the Olympic brand and reputation, but these are exceptional.

GOLDEN GAMES ERA

The size of the Games and the cultural and political influence of the Olympic Movement expanded dramatically in the 1980s and 90s as the Games went truly global during a golden period of economic growth and globalisation, culminating in the Sydney 2000 millennium Games, which was an unprecedented celebration of global sport, prosperity and the Olympic Movement – North and South Korean teams even marching together under the same flag in the Opening Ceremony.

The extraordinary success of the Sydney 2000 Games led to the greatest line-up of cities to ever bid for the Olympic Games, including New York, Paris, London, Moscow and Madrid in what was know as ‘The Great Race,’ won by London for the 2012 Games.

However, as globalisation stalled following the global financial crisis and terrorist attacks have increased, economic growth has remained low and with political and regional instability spreading, cities have begun to review their priorities and needs amid a scarcity of community and city resources.

The doping and corruption of sport has also forced major sporting events further down the list of city and national priorities.

The rapid urbanisation and mass migration to mega cities has also limited the space and structures available in many city areas to host major sporting events as cities are redesigned, reconfigured and adapted to meet the growing housing, energy, transport, schooling, business and employment needs of ever expanding city populations, making the Olympic Games footprint more difficult to accommodate in traditional major city landscapes.

This has created opportunities for a new generation of mid-sized global cities on the rise, like Budapest, to demonstrate their capacity to host multi venue sporting events and bid for the Olympic Games as the Hungarian capital did recently, with a detailed master plan that passed IOC scrutiny until a sudden collapse in political support forced the demise of the bid.

The era of global economic growth and prosperity which fuelled the growth and globalisation of the Olympic Games and the seeming endless galaxy of leading world cities lining up to bid for the Games has faded.

What we are seeing now with the 2024-28 scenario is a re-calibration of the conditions and circumstances around which the Games and potential host cities can best meet each other’s needs based on greater co-operation and collaboration rather than traditional competition between cities.

Few projects can challenge a city or a country like delivering the Games, arguably the world’s most complex piece of project management, and Paris and LA have demonstrated in their masterplan presentations and Candidature files that both cities are capable of staging spectacular Games, reinforcing concerns that the current bid process produces too many losers and not enough return on investment for bid cities.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

This, however, is not just about cities losing bids, but about the Olympic Movement losing cities capable of hosting and delivering great Games for the world.

When Oslo withdrew suddenly from the 2022 Winter Olympic Games bid cycle, amid concerns of possible community disruption and Games extravagance, IOC Executive Director, Christophe Dubi, lamented the withdrawal as a lost opportunity for the city and nation.

Dubi was right, but Oslo’s withdrawal was also a lost golden opportunity for the Olympic Movement to return the Games to a pristine winter wonderland in which a love of sporting activity, the environment and traditional community values and participation were in the DNA of the local culture, a rare combination – and opportunity.

The ban on IOC members visiting bid cities following the Salt Lake City ‘near death’ Olympic bribery scandal has not solved weaknesses in the bid system.

PREDICTING THE UNPREDICTABLE

The last two Olympiads have produced Games which highlight major weaknesses in the bid system – that bid cities can win for the wrong reasons and deliver Games that weaken the Olympic Movement and brand – and highlight the need for urgent change.

While Rio 2016 demonstrated the vulnerability of successful bid cities to unexpected adverse geopolitical and economic developments – compounded by poor Games organisation, governance, venue planning and allegations of corruption – Sochi 2014 highlighted what can happen when host cities have to redesign successful bid plans, requiring massive new non-core Games infrastructure that send budgets soaring, and shrink the pool of potential future bid cities.

CONCLUSION

Too often the success of an Olympic cycle is judged by the number of cities bidding. What matters most, however, is not the number of cities that enter a biding cycle, but the number of cities that complete the bid and are politically, financially and socially stable enough to stage the Games seven years after winning a bid.

Because of the long seven year lead time to prepare for the Olympic Games, the IOC is having to predict the unpredictable when selecting host cities.

A more informed IOC membership is required if the best possible host cities are to be identified and selected – perhaps a more forensic analysis and understanding of the potential weaknesses in bid city landscapes and cultures would have indicated that Rio’s bid masterplan was not really deliverable and that Chicago might have been a safer option at the time.

Similarly, Sochi’s skeletal infrastructure and remote location should have raised concerns about selecting a city requiring such massive infrastructure development and budgetary support.

The 2024-28 double Games announcement is needed to buy the IOC more time to better plan and modify the bidding and delivery process for the Olympic Games in this extended period of global change and uncertainty.

About the contributor: Michael Pirrie is an international communications adviser and commentator on the Olympic Games and world sport. He was executive adviser to the Chairman of the London 2012 Olympic Games Organising Committee, Seb Coe, and most recently advised the Budapest 2024 Olympic Games Bid Committee on international communications and media relations.

Do you want to have your say on the Olympic movement? Head over to our Community page to join the discussion!