Olympic programme review - analysis of the analysis
This is my very tentative initial review (likely as not to be amended) of the IOC's Olympic Programme Commission - Report to the 117th IOC Session - a hefty download of 265 pages.
The report, as mentioned in the previous item, does not contain any recommendations for the IOC Session about whether to vote to exclude or include any sports, but sets outs some findings based on a questionnaire sent to all sports governing bodies.
The background to this is that the same IOC commission in 2002 produced a report recommending exclusion of 5 sports plus the discipline within athletics of race walking - this rather inept document was produced without consultation or sound evidence, so was error strewn and based on personal prejudice. So the unfairness to the sports affected naturally led to the committee being asked to think again (Jacques Rogge must have been severely embarrassed by the document that supported his aims of slimming the Games to add new sports - but treated the sports that were the foundation of the Olympics so shabbily).
So a two year consultation process and analysis has taken place - but since the authors are the same Commission (although the personnel has altered slightly in the meantime) it hardly seems likely the subsequent document will contradict the initial one, though obviously they will be more careful with their recommendations.
The next IOC session in Singapore in July will be asked to vote on the inclusion of all the sports now part of the Games - which will require a simple majority (51%), while sports up for inclusion (golf, rugby and others) will require two thirds majority.
This will be the same meeting that will consider the venue for the 2012 Games.
According to the Press Release for the IOC report 'Any decision regarding Olympic sports is the responsibility of the IOC Session; any decision regarding disciplines and events is the responsibility of the Executive Board' - therefore the event we know and love is at risk from the stroke of an executive pen.
In the document, the section on athletics begins on page 99 - and is summarised on page 107.
My initial reading is that despite the inclusion of collected data, this document is as political and as much based on individual prejudice as before. The data seems selective, and to a large extent erroneous. It picks out race walking as before, but does so without reason other than revisiting a theme prompted by locally caused mess-ups at the Sydney Games.
For instance, it singles out race walking as being unique in track and field in being to a large extent relying on judgment and that the number of disqualifications is a bad thing - while judging is an important element to a varying degree in all events (field event measurement, relay takeovers, pole vault clearances etc.) and the DQ rate in the 2003 WC 100m final was about the same or worse as in the walks.
A quick look at some of the stats sees errors - for instance the paying spectator figures for the Athens Olympics walks are nonsense since the walks took place largely on the roads which were free to visit (though very poorly promoted and made spectator unfriendly at Athens).
I've no idea of spectator numbers and although it was fairly early morning the number of Greeks cheering Athanasia Tsoumeleka to gold was many times the 6000 given for all the walks.
The question of judging is mentioned, and IAAF must have filled in the boxes about changes made since Sydney 2000 since the report mentions that 'The IAAF has improved the system for judging for the walk events with positive results in Athens. Nevertheless, judging still has a high impact on the walk events, the image of which remains a concern.'
What the authors mean by image I find hard to discern. Do they mean the image of the sport held by a young kid in a poor region of Ecuador? A local spectator cheering on Athanasia in Athens? An aspiring athlete say in China? A channel-flipping joe six-pack in Anytown, USA? or do they in fact only reflect the author[base ']s own petty prejudice? With no evidence of research I[base ']ve seen pointed to I can only summise the latter.
What do they mean by image too? A more positive public perception should be worked on for sure, but it's impossible to know what needs to be worked on as far as their views are concerned as the grounds seem so shaky. If they mean a negative image results from the number of DQs that's not a legitimate argument since a high DQ rate simply means the rules are being enforced. An equally negative image could result from a low DQ rate and transgressors win.
The IAAF's approach to improved PR seems to be to promote the personalities of the champion athletes - and we have been quite fortunate in that regard, altough maybe it's intrinsic in the event that the stronger personalities prevail.
Also, without yet having looked at how other sports are judged it's hard to see why the need for judgment is called into question. Judgment is used in soccer, tennis in fact in most sports, and, as mentioned, is not exclusive to walks in track and field.
Some of the report's statements fall into the category of simply absurd. In discussing the cost of staging athletics it reports that the venue cost is v. high if a stadium built - but without a stadium there would be no opening ceremony or central location for the Games.
Which brings me to what really will be the deciding factor - the statement that just 10% of IAAF[base ']s income comes from the Olympics. For IOC it must be 40/50/60+ percent from track and field athletics as a guess..... In other words, athletics has a lot of leverage, and we must make sure we remain on the same side of the fulcrum.
An aside - the document refers to each sport's transparency, so it's interesting to note that for the pdf of the report has the properties 'Document copying is not allowed' and 'accessibility (for partially sighted people) is not allowed'!
1:19:46 PM 
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