(ATR) The presence of IOC President Thomas Bach at the Panam Sports general assembly on Thursday will be "stimulating" and "motivating".
Panam Sports secretary general Ivar Sisniega tells Around the Rings "it’s always a good thing to have the IOC president at our general assembly. He understands sports, he understands what we’re discussing. So I think it’s good. He has a complicated agenda. We hope he can stay and at least get a good glimpse of most of the general assembly."
How much Bach takes part in the general assembly will likely depend on how jetlagged he will be after a long flight from Japan. He arrives in Lima after taking part in one-year-to-go festivities for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics on Tuesday.
"I think he will be pleased to see the direction that Panam Sports is taking. That’s the impression we get from people in the IOC, that they’re happy to see the changes that have been going on in Panam Sports," Sisniega says.
Since becoming president of Panam Sports two years ago, Neven Ilic has worked to transform the organization, focusing on good governance and good administration. Under Ilic, Panam Sports has stressed helping the 41 NOCs on an individual basis rather than a blanket approach.
The representation of athletes is another commitment. Sisniega says the executive will make it clear at the general assembly that they would like by the end of 2020 to have every NOC with its own athletes commission and an athlete representative on its executive board.
The assembly will also vote on the replacement on the executive committee for Larry Probst, who stepped down as chairman of the board of the United States Olympic Committee at the end of last year. He was replaced by Susanne Lyons in January. Since then the organization has changed its name to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
But neither Lyons nor USOPC chief executive officer Sarah Hirshland, who began her term in August 2018, are eligible to replace Probst under the current Panam Sports statute which requires a three year minimum tenure in office to serve on the executive board.
Sisniega says there is a proposal in the general assembly to modify the statute to soften the requirement and that it’s one of the items on the agenda for Thursday.
But should the statute be changed, it still wouldn’t take effect until next year’s general election.
In the meantime, Sisniega says there are two candidates to replace Probst: Canadian Olympic Committee President Tricia Smith and Nicaragua Olympic Committee Secretary General Juan Santiago Estrada Garcia.
The general assembly will also receive a presentation from the organizers of the next Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile in 2023 and a report from the executive committee on how the first host city for the Pan American Junior Games in 2021 was chosen. Cali, Colombia was elected over fellow Candidate Cities Santa Ana, El Salvador and Monterrey, Mexico in March.
Future host cities for the Pan American Games are likely to be determined by following the new IOC bidding model.
"We’re embarking on our own study of Agenda 2020 at the Pan American level," Sisniega says.
"When we looked for the Pan Am junior city host we weighed in very heavily, in this case Cali, and the fact they pretty much had all the infrastructure. So that’s certainly one of the things we’re looking at. And in the same way as the IOC presented a couple of weeks ago in Lausanne, we’re looking at being way more proactive going after cities and looking for the right fit as opposed to just waiting to see who shows up."
Sisniega says "some countries" have already shown interest in hosting the 2027 Pan American Games, which is to be decided in 2021 according to Panam Sports statutes.
Part of the solution, the Panam Sports secretary general says, is for his organization to be more efficient and reduce costs for hosting the Games so that it becomes "more feasible for more cities".
Written and reported by Gerard Farek in Lima
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