BANGKOK, April 17, 2018 – In his first addressat the 2018 SportAccord Convention in Bangkok, IOC president Thomas Bach warnedagainst the danger of sport being used as a means for division, and insistedthat the greatest power of sport lies in remaining politically neutral.
“As the world becomes more and morepolarized – socially, economically, politically, this is when the unifyingpower of sport becomes more important than ever. However, this polarizationalso leads to some wanting to use the power for their own political purposes.While we strive for unifying, some are using sport to divide people even more.
Neutrality“This is sometimes a very fine line,” Bachcontinued, “and the only answer is that sport has to remain strictlypolitically neutral. Sometimes this is not easy, acting and dealing with thoseyou might not politically agree with, where you see serious problems. This iswhen you have to take the decision that it is not up to sport to judgepolitically, or to erect walls but that it is more important that sport remainsthe bridge between people,” he said.
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UnitedThrough Sport The IOC president was speaking at theUnited Through Sport Conference on the third day of the SportAccord Conventionin Bangkok. A novel part of the Convention is a festival under the patronage ofthe IOC dedicated to promoting sport on a widespread level among Thailand’s youthwith the participation of over 40 Olympic and non-Olympic sports, including participation of displaced children and juvenile delinquent youth.
Bach praised the initiative for the UnitedThrough Sport campaign in Thailand led by AIMS President and GAISF VicePresident Stephen Fox, a notable figure in the Thai combat sport Muythai, andcalled for more engagement in sport.
Building bridges “The principle decision is how to makeprogress, through isolation or engagement. The answer of sport must always beengagement. Only then can you get your argument across, or in the case of sport,our values across. This is how bridges are built. Keep going, building thesebridges even if sometimes if it is not easy, and keep your political neutrality,under all circumstances, because otherwise you will see sport losing its fragileunifying power very quickly,” he underlined.
RussiaBach was faced with the danger of numerous bridgesburning during his mandate as IOC president, including a global cry for all Russianathletes to be banned from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro after evidenceof Russian government-sanctioned doping at Sochi 2014 emerged and even morepressure for the same to be done at the Winter Games in PyeongChang. In Rio, Russianathletes were allowed to compete, if approved by stringent tests within theirinternational federations. In PyeongChang, following the suspension of theRussian Olympic Committee due to further proof of “unprecedented systematic dopingmanipulation”, Russian athletes proven to be clean were allowed to compete as ‘OlympicAthletes from Russia’. In such a compromise suspension, Bach avoided thepossible outright boycott of Russia at the Games.
A Peninsulaunited More sensitive still were drastically heightenedtensions on the Korean peninsula just months before PyeongChang 2018, due toNorth Korean missile tests. The outcome, after a push from the IOC and theUnited Nations, was an unprecedented show of unity at the Winter Games in PyeongChang,which saw not only the participation of North Korean athletes, but the march ofNorth and South Korea under a united flag in the Opening Ceremony, and a unitedKorean women’s hockey team.
Speaking of the joint march in PyeongChang,Bach went beyond the messages of pride that was delivered after the Games andrevealed it wasn’t easy.
Threespeeches “We had an agreement with both of thegovernments from North and South Korea on the 20th of January 2018for the joint march, for the Unified flag and the joint ice hockey team, and manypeople thought it was done. But the final decision was taken four hours beforethe Opening Ceremony, because there were last minute attempts by both sides tomake a political point, with one symbol or the other," Bach said.
"Then we had to decide what to do, whether togive in to save this great symbol of the unified march or whether we would say –under these circumstances no. This is what we did, so at noon time of the dayof the Opening Ceremony, I had three different speeches ready, because we wouldnot know if we would convince all sides to follow our decisions.”
