U.S. Olympic leaders decline leadership role on fate of 2020 Tokyo Olympics, refuse to call publicly for postponement
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USOPC chief executive Sarah Hirshland (right) with Team USA beach volleyball players Jace Pardon and Karissa Cook at the 2019 Pan American Games. (USOPC_CEO Instagram)
The leaders of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, chief executive Sarah Hirshland and board chair Susanne Lyons, did just what I expected in a Friday media teleconference,
They equivocated.
Completely passed the buck to the International Olympic Committee on the fate of the 2020 Olympics rather than have the USOPC stake out a higher moral ground, which the IOC long has been unwilling to do on far more matters than just the coronavirus issue.
Fell back too often on bureaucratic blather.
Repeated several variations on the mantra, as expressed by Lyons, “I can assure you there is no circumstance when the USOC would send our athletes into harm’s way.”
Declined to take a stand showing they meant what that mantra implies.
Ducked the question of why the USOPC wasn’t taking a leading role in the decision about whether the Olympics should take place this summer.
Spoke eloquently and sincerely of their need and will to help athletes with mental health issues created by their inability to train and/or motivation to train for an Olympics with uncertain viability - what Lyons called, “The fear and stress and uncertainties they are feeling right now.”
But would not promote the solution that could end the athletes’ uncertainty.
They needed to say publicly, so the tone-deaf IOC could hear it, “We believe the best option at this moment is to postpone the Olympics.”
Put that way, it would not sound like an ultimatum but a heartfelt suggestion. It would not leave the USOPC looking wrong-headed if, in what seems a highly unlikely turn of events, the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control well before the scheduled July 24 opening of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
After all, IOC President Thomas Bach finally stopped giving his disingenuous denials any possibility but a 2020 Olympics as scheduled even was under discussion when he told the New York Times Thursday the IOC is considering “various scenarios” and that “cancellation is not on the agenda.”
It’s time for everyone to stop hiding behind the idea that there is no need for an immediate decision because there are four months to go. Read about what is happening in Italy. Be aware that the number of positives in the United States is predicted to reach staggering numbers when (or in this case, if) the thoroughly inept and utterly callous trump administration finds a way to make tests available to everybody, not just to NBA players and the wealthy.
To her credit, Lyons said she has reminded the IOC that the coronavirus situation is very different country by country and that “we (the United States) are right in the middle of it.”
It would be nice if one or more of the 14 big-money global sponsors that bankroll the IOC, six of which are headquartered in the United States, would tell Bach and his clueless sycophants on the IOC to stop thinking they can play God. Not holding my breath.
So the responsibility for saying that falls to others. Some of the greatest Olympic champions in history already have done that. Current and retired athletes have done it. And the USOPC should be doing it, as well.
Instead, Hirshland exhorted athletes to “continue to do what they can to prepare themselves for competition” if they can do so in a “safe and appropriate environment based on local health officials’ guidance.”
Hello? The state of California is all but shut down. Between 20 and 30 percent of the nearly 600 athletes likely to make the 2020 U.S. Olympic team live and train in California. That’s a fact, with no implication that those who live anywhere else are less important or less impacted.
And then there are matters such as the suspension of most out-of-competition doping controls, which could lead to a pharmaceutical free-for-all far more extensive than the one everyone knows takes place even with testing. And question of the selection of teams in some U.S. sports if scheduled trials cannot be held.
No wonder USA Swimming is asking the USOPC to advocate for a postponement of the Olympics, as Christine Brennan first reported in USA Today. Swimming has been the most successful part of the U.S. Olympic team in this millennium. Its top athletes, Katie Ledecky, Simone Manuel, Regan Smith and Caeleb Dressel, figured to be among the biggest stars in Tokyo.
In a statement responding to the USA Swimming request, Hirshland indicated the USOPC was not prepared to seek a postponement “to ensure that we aren’t prematurely taking away any athletes’ opportunity to compete in the Olympic and Paralympic Games until we have better clarity.”
And the Norwegian Olympic Committee Friday sent a letter to the IOC saying, “Our clear recommendation is that the Olympic Games in Tokyo shall not take place before the COVID-19 situation is under firm control on a global scale.” The letter also asked the IOC to provide a timeline for the final decision.
Norwegian Olympic Committee President Berit Kjoell said in a press release that no matter the IOC decision, Norway will make an independent decision about whether it should send athletes this summer.
“Our eyes are wide open to the challenges ahead even if our hope remains strong,” Lyons said in her opening statement.
I asked the last of 11 questions in the 33-minute teleconference. This was it:
“You raised the point about athletes’ mental health needs because of this tremendous uncertainty, which is an extremely good point. Given that, wouldn’t it be better for you to ask the IOC to tell these athletes, `As of this date (whatever it is), there will be a decision?’ And wouldn’t it be better to ask the IOC that the decision will be a postponement because this four-month thing they keep throwing around is totally meaningless, given our lack of knowledge about the spread of this disease?””
Hirshland answered it. Sort of.
“You raise all really valid and important considerations. The fact of the matter is, in any instance, the ambiguity right now is due cause for significant anxiety, and the reality is there are issues on all sides of this that are creating real anxiety and concern for all of us. There are athletes who view this as their only chance and their last chance (at competing in an Olympics.) We are all living with a pretty high degree of uncertainty and a lack of clarity right now. We absolutely hope we do have clarity as soon as that is practical.
“I don’t know that there is an answer in this that will provide ease to everyone. I think there are a number of outcomes that are going to create a real need for mental health support on all sides of this. We are going to do everything we can to provide that support.”
Like Bach’s long overdue if indirect admission that unspecified alternatives to having the Olympics in 2020 are being considered, Hirshland said the USOPC was “trying to be as prepared as we can for any variety of potential outcomes.
“It is our hope that our athletes have the ability to achieve their dreams in some capacity. Certainly we are focused in Tokyo 2020 and will continue to be as long as that possibility stays.”
In a poem of inspirational optimism, the great American poet Emily Dickinson wrote, “`Hope’ is the thing with feathers.’’’
Anyone can see that the 2020 Olympic feathers are molting.
