LA28 in the face of changing global realities
With the inauguration of a new president of the United States of America (USA) on 20 January 2025, the world as we had come to know it until that day, was subjected to a flurry of major changes, the likes of which, while expected, managed to upend existing global realities in a manner that is still sending shock waves just about everywhere. Little has been left untouched in terms of impact, leaving much of the world’s population aghast in respect of what comes next on any given day; where will it end; and the ultimate end product.
Over the weeks and months since 20 January 2025, international relations have become very convoluted, making nations uncertain as to who is friend or foe and what either condition would mean, going forward. The global economy has been turned on its head forcing the rapid transformation of trade alliances and by extension, the creation of new ones, altogether.
In the midst of the world today, at the time of writing this Column, many aspects of what was considered life in different parts of the world can no longer be taken as normal and as yet, nothing can, with any measure of confidence and certainty, be labelled the new normal.
Such is the state we are in, post 20 January 2025, that nations that once thought themselves settled about where they are located in the global scheme of things are now grasping to confront a rapidly changing reality that holds no guarantees, neither of longevity nor of stability.
Global sport, generally, has been decidedly slothful in engaging in any sort of analysis of the changing global reality. However, with the political upheaval emergent in California, USA, as of last week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and the Organising Committee of the Olympic Games of 2028, have found themselves catapulted into international headlines for reasons other than they would have wanted at this juncture – the Summer Olympics are a mere three years away.
For those who remain naively committed to a view that sport and politics do not mix, a very rude awakening is emerging, and they will have to take a stand – to be or not…involved in the decision- making process. Failure to do so will leave them having to accept whatever others decide.
Decision 2024 and 2028
As a private international sport organisation, the IOC prides itself as something of a world power, in its own right. This fallacy has inevitably become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy for those fortunate enough to have been selected to become members – an elite elitist group.
The Boston Debacle
When the USOC (now USOPC) sought a bidding city for the Summer Olympics of 2024, Boston won in what was a rather bruising battle. As the USOPC announced Boston as its bidding city for the Games of 2024, a small group of Bostonians started questioning how it all came to pass. In pursuit of answers the group grew ever larger and eventually snowballed into a grand movement that asked numerous questions about the decision-making process. Their ultimate challenge was the process of arriving at a conclusion that Bostonians wanted the Games of 2024. Eventually, a call for a referendum had to be accepted and the result showed that the majority of the city did not know the full extent of the cost of hosting the Games and when they did, were not prepared to commit to taking the risks involved.
Speaking as a panellist at the IOC’s ‘Olympism in Action’ forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina, just ahead of the commencement of the Youth Olympics of 2018, the de facto leader of the group of Bostonians that successfully challenged the USOPC’s decision, explained the people of Boston were not really involved. They were not given the opportunity to know, study and analyse the parameters of the undertaking. Once they got the requisite information, they made an informed decision not to host the Games.
Caught in a rather embarrassing position, the USOPC was fortunate enough to engage and perhaps, persuade, Los Angeles, twice hosts of the Summer Olympics before, to come on board.
Decision LA2028
Some say fortune favours the brave.
The IOC has been through several turbulent patches in its existence but, like so many corporate enterprises, has managed to survive, though not always unscathed.
It is normally the case that the Olympics are awarded, one edition at a time.
Before Los Angeles had come on board, rumours appeared to have been circulating that Paris were almost odds on favourite to win the bid for 2024. There appeared to have been much back-room chatter about Paris having been by-passed as far back as the Games of 1992 when Barcelona emerged something of a surprise winner, even though it was considered by many in the know, that the city would have been one of the smallest to host the modern Olympics but that it was also the home of then, IOC President, Juan Antonio Samaranch.
When Los Angeles was announced as a contender against Paris for the Games of 2024, and given the city’s reputation as host and affluence, shivers ran through many a sport analyst.
IOC President at the time, Thomas Bach, keen to add notches of success to his legacy, and armed with Olympic Agenda 2020, pulled ‘a rabbit from the hat’ of his Olympic ‘bag of tricks’.
Los Angeles was just too good a host to lose. There was no certainty that if they lost 2024, they would either be interested in bidding again for 2028. Even if they decided to bid internally in the USA for 2028, one had no guarantee that they would win and so be a real contender for the Games of that year.
The sports’ world was shocked to learn that the IOC had ‘decided’ to award the Summer Olympics of 2024 and 2028 respectively at the same Session originally convened to elect the host of the Games of 2024.
LA2028 in focus
Paris has come and gone.
The Olympic cauldron extinguished.
All eyes are focused on LA28.
The USA elected a new President in November 2024.
On the first day in office, the new President signs himself into history by the sheer number of Executive orders signed on that very occasion.
A few days later, the entire world is stunned by an announcement of tariffs of varying degrees, most of them, ultimately, impacting the world. Old trading partners gather in disbelief, officially forced into an understanding that new international economic and political orders are forced on everybody, like it or not. They hasten to come to terms with the changing decisions in Washington and busy themselves fashioning responses considered appropriate to their own interests, first, and shared interests with others, thereafter. New partnerships quickly emerge.
As is always the case, small, poor, developing, peripheral nations fall to their knees, doing what they have always done since colonisation and independence, hastily meet and agree to cower to the rich and powerful nations begging reprieve.
The realities of the consequences of the changes so suddenly foisted on the world have begun to bite, leaving gaping wounds that quickly fester threatening life as we have come to know it.
Countries caught in the vicious battles raging in the global environment seek urgent responses and their priorities do not include sport.
It takes the response to an executive order imposing restrictions on people from several nations and the responses of Americans across that nation to the immigration prerogatives in practice in California in the recent past to have sporting organisations and nations raise the matter of the Olympic Games of LA28.
The Olympics have long been sold as a vehicle for the pervasive cause of peace, justice, harmony amid respect for the sanctity of humanity. They have survived Hitler’s Germany in 1936, the boycotts of 1976, 1980 and 1984, the Salt Lake City Scandal, to name a few challenges in the event’s history.
The IOC must be decidedly bothered. The USOPC even more so.
Last week the USOPC circulated a rather interesting document, the intent of which is clear to all recipients. Obviously anxious of the possible consequences for attendance and participation at LA28, the document states, in part, “We recognize the potential implications for international sport, and over the past several months have had productive conversations with the Administration which have resulted in an important exemption for the global sports community.
“The exemption states that athletes, coaches, and essential support personnel may continue to enter the United States to train, compete, and qualify for major international competitions without interruption and we are engaged in ongoing conversation with the State Department.”
The foregoing is indeed welcome news. The entire Olympic Movement is hopeful that all nations will respect the right of each other to self-determination and the pursuit of national development by peaceful means. We ought to be looking out for each other.
Now, more than ever, we need the Olympic Truce to be adhered to and not become a mere symbol of what we would like to see happen but have absolutely no means of implementing across the world.
NOCs around the world ponder whether there will be more restrictions of countries and if their own countries would be up for inclusion should there be another round of restrictions on people from more nations.
Clearly concerned about the possible consequences of current, seemingly sporadic pronouncements of monumental unilateral initiatives, the USOPC seizes the opportunity to reign in the inevitable fears of Olympic Committees across the Movement who are themselves of an understanding that their respective national governments will act on how they are impacted where it hurts most, their national economic bottom lines.
Over the next several weeks and months, the IOC and USOPC will continue along a path of sport political diplomacy. Thomas Bach will, one final time, inevitably, use his years of cultivating the IOC as a world institution of influence to once more lend his support to the United Nations, reminding world leaders of the importance of meeting their commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals agreed to for 2030 and how sport is critical to that.
The IOC must understand that National Olympic Committees are not ‘patsies’. They are composed of real, flesh and blood human beings, living in this world, under different circumstances – social, economic, religious, cultural, political – impacting their own decisions as to how they respond to the changing global realities. Their voices must be sought, heard and acted upon.
This may well offer the IOC and the Olympic Movement an excellent opportunity to change itself, not in its own, protective interest but for the global interest of the peoples of the world whom its claims to serve.
Thomas Bach, in launching Olympic Agenda 2020, insisted, ‘Change of be changed!’.
The current global circumstance is enforcing changes upon us in sport as it is on all other aspects of life.
We must take the plunge and show ourselves ready for the challenges, whatever they may be.
