(ATR) Denis Oswald launches his manifesto to become IOC president by calling for a review of the Olympic program and a "creative approach" to the addition of new sports.
The Swiss, who announced his plans to stand for the IOC presidency two weeks ago, unveiled his ‘My Five Rings’ campaign at the Maison du Sport in Lausanne on Monday.
In spelling out his manifesto pledges based around vision, values, mission, structure and operation and ‘our Games’, the 66-year-old attempted to carve out a niche for himself in the crowded race to replace IOC president Jacques Rogge.
He explained that his vast knowledge of sport and experience of sports administration, combined with "the leadership for which I am known can contribute to the Olympic Movement". Oswald pledged to promote and protect the Olympic Games, involve members more in decision-making and "fight against all the excesses and abuses" which threaten clean sport, referring to match-fixing and illegal betting and doping.
But the most notable comments from the International Rowing Federation president in his 1 hour 20 minute news conference came when he was speaking off script.
Restating what he told Around the Rings two weeks ago, Oswald said he was "very surprised" at the IOC executive board’s decision to propose wrestling be dropped from the Games.
"The federation [FILA] maybe did not make the effort but I think there were other ways to warn them because wrestling is a basic sport [of the Olympics]. I am convinced they will come back," he told reporters.
If wrestling won the bidding battle with squash and baseball-softball for the 2020 Games, he claimed the plan to bring a new sport to the program would have failed completely.
Oswald advocated a "more creative approach", although he would only reveal one of his ideas, saying he had to present the other ones to IOC members before going public with them.
He said the IOC should not necessarily stick to a cap of 28 sports, but should streamline the program by removing disciplines which were not so "universal" to create space for additional sports and bring some "fresh blood" to the program.
Before Marius Vizer was voted in as SportAccord president last week, Oswald slammed the Austrian’s plans for a United World Championships in comments made to ATR, saying they were an attack on the Olympic Games.
He didn’t hold back again today in his criticism of the proposal, although he suggested it had some merit for the non-Olympic federations.
"We must protect the Olympic Games, the fact they are special and different from any other competition and now allow any parallel competition which could threaten it or lessen their significance," he said.
Referring to Vizer by name, he said the United World Championships plan was not realistic: "I don’t think there is any city in the world which could accommodate such Games."
Oswald also suggested the Youth Olympic Games format was in need of "adjustment" to keep it relevant to the youth of the world.
Oswald joins Germany’s Thomas Bach, Singapore’s Ng Ser Mian, Puerto Rico’s Richard Carrion, Chinese Taipei’s C.K. Wu and Ukraine’s Sergey Bubka in the race for the IOC presidency.
Oswald, who confirmed that he had no interest in standing for the presidency of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said was up against five "very strong competitors who could all be excellent presidents" but insisted he had "a good chance" of winning the Sept 10 election at the IOC Session in Buenos Aires.
Reported by Mark Bisson
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