IOC approves changes to Olympic bidding process, sports program

By Nick ZaccardiDec 8, 2014, 8:53 PM EST

The International Olympic Committee unanimously approved 40 changes to the Olympic bid process and sports program Monday, as part of what the IOC president called Agenda 2020, “a strategic roadmap for the future.”

“This Olympic Agenda 2020 is like a jigsaw puzzle,” IOC president Thomas Bach told IOC members in Monaco. “Now, after you have approved all these 40 individual recommendations, you can see the whole picture of this jigsaw puzzle. You can see the picture of progress, the picture of progress in ensuring the uniqueness of the Olympic Games.”

The next step will be full implementation of the 40 recommendations over the coming months.

The 40 recommendations are officially laid out here.

In bidding, the IOC accepted reduced costs for bid cities, assisting cities considering bids before the bid process starts and allowing bids from multiple cities or countries (which is already allowed in the Winter Games) in exceptional cases.

In the Olympic program, the IOC is shifting focus from a set number of sports approved seven years in advance to a set number of events across all sports. A host city can propose adding a sport for its Games. This could open the door for baseball and softball to be added for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The IOC also urged more mixed-gender events. The Sochi Winter Games included mixed relays in biathlon and luge and a figure skating team event for the first time. Swimming’s international governing body already approved mixed relays in non-Olympic competitions. Bobsled’s international governing body made four-man bobsled gender neutral starting this season.

Also, an Olympic channel was approved. It will start as a digital network when it launches.

The U.S. Olympic Committee has said it will determine if it will bid for the 2024 Olympics after this IOC session. If the USOC bids, it will choose one city from Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Here’s the list of 40 recommendations (with highlights indented):

1. Shape the bidding process as an invitation
- The IOC wishes to assist and advise cities considering bids about bid procedures, core Games requirements and how previous cities have ensured positive legacies.
- The IOC will allow events held outside the host city or, in exceptional cases, outside the host country, notably for reasons of geography and sustainability.
2. Evaluate bid cities by assessing key opportunities and risks
3. Reduce the cost of bidding
- The IOC wishes to bear more travel costs during the bidding process and create a register of consultants/lobbyists to work for bid cities.
4. Include sustainability in all aspects of the Olympic Games
5. Include sustainability within the Olympic Movement’s daily operations
6. Cooperate closely with other sports event organizers
7. Strengthen relationships with organizations managing sport for people
with different abilities
8. Forge relationships with professional leagues
9. Set a framework for the Olympic program
- Limit the Summer Olympics to approximately 10,500 athletes and 310 events. London 2012 had 10,568 athletes in 302 events; Rio 2016 will have 306 events.
- Limit the Winter Olympics to approximately 2,900 athletes and 100 events. Sochi 2014 reportedly had fewer than 2,900 athletes in 98 events.
10. Move from a sport-based to an event-based program
11. Foster gender equality
- Encourage more mixed-gender team events.
12. Reduce the cost and reinforce the flexibility of Olympic Games management
13. Maximize synergies with Olympic Movement stakeholders
14. Strengthen the 6th Fundamental Principle of Olympism
- Include non-discrimination on sexual orientation in the Olympic Charter. The principles currently include text against discrimination based on race, religion, politics and gender.
15. Change the philosophy to protecting clean athletes
16. Leverage the IOC $20 million fund to protect clean athletes
17. Honor clean athletes
18. Strengthen support to athletes
19. Launch an Olympic channel
20. Enter into strategic partnerships
21. Strengthen IOC advocacy capacity
22. Spread Olympic values-based education
23. Engage with communities
24. Evaluate the Sport for Hope program
25. Review Youth Olympic Games positioning
- Move the Youth Olympics to non-Olympic years starting in 2023.
26. Further blend sport and culture
27. Comply with basic principles of good governance
28. Support autonomy
29. Increase transparency
30. Strengthen the IOC Ethics Commission independence
31. Ensure compliance
32. Strengthen ethics
33. Further involve sponsors in “Olympism in Action” programs
34. Develop a global licensing program
35. Foster Olympic partner sponsors’ engagement with National Olympic Committees
36. Extend access to the Olympic brand for non-commercial use
37. Address IOC membership age limit
38. Implement a targeted recruitment process
39. Foster dialogue with society and within the Olympic Movement
40. Review scope and composition of IOC commissions

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U.S. women’s rugby team qualifies for 2024 Paris Olympics as medal contender

By OlympicTalkMar 31, 2023, 1:31 PM EDT

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The U.S. women’s rugby team qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics by clinching a top-four finish in this season’s World Series.

Since rugby was re-added to the Olympics in 2016, the U.S. men’s and women’s teams finished fifth, sixth, sixth and ninth at the Games.

The U.S. women are having their best season since 2018-19, finishing second or third in all five World Series stops so far and ranking behind only New Zealand and Australia, the winners of the first two Olympic women’s rugby sevens tournaments.

The U.S. also finished fourth at last September’s World Cup.

Three months after the Tokyo Games, Emilie Bydwell was announced as the new U.S. head coach, succeeding Olympic coach Chris Brown.

Soon after, Tokyo Olympic co-captain Abby Gustaitis was cut from the team.

Jaz Gray, who led the team in scoring last season and at the World Cup, missed the last three World Series stops after an injury.

The U.S. men are ranked ninth in this season’s World Series and will likely need to win either a North American Olympic qualifier this summer or a last-chance global qualifier in June 2024 to make it to Paris.

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Oscar Pistorius denied parole, hasn’t served enough time

Associated PressMar 31, 2023, 1:05 PM EDT

File photo

Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius was denied parole Friday and will have to stay in prison for at least another year and four months after it was decided that he had not served the “minimum detention period” required to be released following his murder conviction for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp 10 years ago.

The parole board ruled that Pistorius would only be able to apply again in August 2024, South Africa’s Department of Corrections said in a short, two-paragraph statement. It was released soon after a parole hearing at the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre prison where Pistorius is being held.

The board cited a new clarification on Pistorius’ sentence that was issued by South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal just three days before the hearing, according to the statement. Still, legal experts criticized authorities’ decision to go ahead with the hearing when Pistorius was not eligible.

Reeva Steenkamp’s parents, Barry and June, are “relieved” with the decision to keep Pistorius in prison but are not celebrating it, their lawyer told The Associated Press.

“They can’t celebrate because there are no winners in this situation. They lost a daughter and South Africa lost a hero,” lawyer Tania Koen said, referring to the dramatic fall from grace of Pistorius, once a world-famous and highly-admired athlete.

The decision and reasoning to deny parole was a surprise but there has been legal wrangling over when Pistorius should be eligible for parole because of the series of appeals in his case. He was initially convicted of culpable homicide, a charge comparable to manslaughter, in 2014 but the case went through a number of appeals before Pistorius was finally sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison for murder in 2017.

Serious offenders must serve at least half their sentence to be eligible for parole in South Africa. Pistorius’ lawyers had previously gone to court to argue that he was eligible because he had served the required portion if they also counted periods served in jail from late 2014 following his culpable homicide conviction.

The lawyer handling Pistorius’ parole application did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

June Steenkamp attended Pistorius’ hearing inside the prison complex to oppose his parole. The parents have said they still do not believe Pistorius’ account of their daughter’s killing and wanted him to stay in jail.

Pistorius, who is now 36, has always claimed he killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law student, in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine’s Day 2013 after mistaking her for a dangerous intruder in his home. He shot four times with his licensed 9 mm pistol through a closed toilet cubicle door in his bathroom, where Steenkamp was, hitting her multiple times. Pistorius claimed he didn’t realize his girlfriend had got out of bed and gone to the bathroom.

The Steenkamps say they still think he is lying and killed her intentionally after a late-night argument.

Lawyer Koen had struck a more critical tone when addressing reporters outside the prison before the hearing, saying the Steenkamps believed Pistorius could not be considered to be rehabilitated “unless he comes clean” over the killing.

“He’s the killer of their daughter. For them, it’s a life sentence,” Koen said before the hearing.

June Steenkamp had sat grim-faced in the back seat of a car nearby while Koen spoke to reporters outside the prison gates ahead of the hearing. June Steenkamp and Koen were then driven into the prison in a Department of Corrections vehicle. June Steenkamp made her submission to the parole board in a separate room to Pistorius and did not come face-to-face with her daughter’s killer, Koen said.

Barry Steenkamp did not travel for the hearing because of poor health but a family friend read out a statement to the parole board on his behalf, the parents’ lawyer said.

Pistorius was once hailed as an inspirational figure for overcoming the adversity of his disability, before his murder trial and sensational downfall captivated the world.

Pistorius’s lower legs were amputated when he was a baby because of a congenital condition and he walks with prosthetics. He went on to become a double-amputee runner and multiple Paralympic champion who made history by competing against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, running on specially designed carbon-fiber blades.

Pistorius’ conviction eventually led to him being sent to the Kgosi Mampuru II maximum security prison, one of South Africa’s most notorious. He was moved to the Atteridgeville prison in 2016 because that facility is better suited to disabled prisoners.

There have only been glimpses of his life in prison, with reports claiming he had at one point grown a beard, gained weight and taken up smoking and was unrecognizable from the elite athlete he once was.

He has spent much of his time working in an area of the prison grounds where vegetables are grown, sometimes driving a tractor, and has reportedly been running bible classes for other inmates.

Pistorius’ father, Henke Pistorius, told the Pretoria News newspaper before the hearing that his family hoped he would be home soon.

“Deep down, we believe he will be home soon,” Henke Pistorius said, “but until the parole board has spoken the word, I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

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