Author: Sean Ingle

Bach’s successor is already making a positive impression but will need all her resolve at mammoth organisation

A new day has broken, has it not? For several reasons, Tony Blair’s 1997 election victory speech comes to mind on what will be a historic and symbolic day for sport. Because in Lausanne on Monday, after plenty of handshakes and platitudes, the 41-year-old Kirsty Coventry will become the first female and first African president of the International Olympic Committee in its 131-year-old history.

It has been, by any measure, a dizzying ascent. In 2016, Coventry stepped out of an Olympic pool for the final time in Rio. Now, nine years later, she is the most powerful person in sport. Yet as she takes charge, there are some who suspect that the new dawn will look rather like the old one – and that her predecessor, Thomas Bach, and his administration, will remain puppet masters behind the throne.

Continue reading...

New research has shown there was a positive impact during London 2012 but the legacy effects appear to be short-lived

Does hosting an Olympics really improve our wellbeing? If so, by how much - and for how long? Are we really happier when Team GB win gold medals? And are the lofty claims of politicians that London 2012 would make us healthier born out by the facts?

While the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was banging the drum for the capital hosting the Olympics in 2040 last week, academics at the LSE, Harvard and in Germany were answering these questions – and quietly busting a few myths about the legacy of 2012.

Continue reading...

From protecting women’s sport to the return of Russia and keeping the Olympics relevant, the former gold medallist has tough challenges ahead

As a seven-time Olympic swimming medallist, Kirsty Coventry knows a thing or two about navigating choppy waters. But the new International Olympic Committee president now faces the biggest set of challenges to global sport since the 1980s, when boycotts rocked the Moscow and Los Angeles Games. As the 41-year-old prepares to take over from Thomas Bach in June, what issues will she face?

Continue reading...

Poll result defied candidates’ calculations and illustrated outgoing president’s influence but change may yet come

It might sound beyond ridiculous, given the scale of Kirsty Coventry’s seismic victory in the International Olympic Committee presidential election. But as the various royals, sporting dignitaries, politicians and billionaires left the Costa Navarino resort on Friday, some really believed the result could have turned out very differently.

Yes, the 41-year-old Zimbabwean ex-swimmer had won in the first round with 49 votes to become the first woman to lead the IOC. And yes, Juan Antonio Samaranch and Sebastian Coe, the other members of the “Big Three”, had come away with just 28 and eight votes respectively. But in the postmortem there were several stories about how the IOC machine had powered Thomas Bach’s chosen successor over the line.

Continue reading...

The average sports fan is increasingly a big-eventer and there is a risk of the Games losing out in the attention economy

We are knee-deep in Twixmas: that twilight zone between Christmas and new year, excess and reflection, lists and yet more lists. Over the past week there have been many saluting the best sporting moments of 2024. Yet across the globe there is one constant: these lists are dominated by a Paris Olympics seared into the memory. Nothing else came close.

Pick your day, relive the moment. Keely Hodgkinson, Alex Yee, Simone Biles, Léon Marchand, Mondo Duplantis, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and a men’s 1500m final for the ages; I was fortunate to see them all up close. But even that list still barely scratches the surface. As Christophe Dubi, the executive director of the Olympics, put it to me recently, Paris 2024 was like the Dude in the Big Lebowski: the right Games at the right time and place.

Continue reading...

The French capital overcame issues including an opening ceremony deluge to deliver 17 days of joyous madness

Four months after Paris 2024’s spectacular finale, starring Tom Cruise abseiling off the top of the Stade de France and hurtling out of a plane above Los Angeles, the executive director of the Olympics is mulling over the lasting impact of the Games. Albeit with the help of a rather different cinematic icon.

“I was making a presentation to Deloitte executives recently,” says Christophe Dubi, the man responsible for planning and delivering the Olympics. “And I started by paraphrasing the Stranger in The Big Lebowski: ‘Sometimes, there is a man, he’s the man for his time and place, he was The Dude.’ Because Paris really was the right Games, at the right time and place.”

Continue reading...