U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee needs to show it cares for athletes by speaking truth to IOC (petty) power

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U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee needs to show it cares for athletes by speaking truth to IOC (petty) power

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee has deservedly faced withering criticism for its failure to act on knowledge that former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar had sexually abused hundreds of athletes under his care.

While that criticism has largely been directed at the USOPC’s former top leadership, the current regime also should not escape condemnation for its amoral legal posturing to avoid liability as part of a shameful settlement proposal with the Nassar survivors.

The overall picture is that of an organization thrilled by a California appellate court ruling last October that the USOPC did not have a legal responsibility to protect athletes rather than that of an organization that should live by a moral responsibility to do exactly that.

Now the USOPC has an opportunity to do something that won’t cleanse the horrible ethical stain of its actions and inactions in the Nassar situation but will show it actually cares about athletes.

The USOPC must publicly tell the International Olympic Committee that it has failed both athletes and the world at large by continuing to take a full-steam-ahead approach to the 2020 Summer Olympics in the face of the global coronavirus pandemic.

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Full of vainglory, IOC grandees sweat details about Tokyo 2020 while hiding big picture

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Full of vainglory, IOC grandees sweat details about Tokyo 2020 while hiding big picture

The International Olympic Committee said some things Tuesday about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the coronavirus in the form of what it called a “communique,” because the simple word “statement” apparently is not good enough for these self-appointed pooh-bahs.

The dispatch from Olympus publicly addressed only the issue of how athletes who have yet to qualify for the Summer Games might do so, which shows the IOC is 1) rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and/or 2) is so distanced from reality it won’t acknowledge the elephant in the room until the beast finishes shitting on them.

The statement tries to justify avoiding mention of the possibility these Summer Games might not take place as scheduled by saying, “any speculation at this moment would be counter-productive.”

That comes at the end of a paragraph reading, “The IOC remains fully committed to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, and with more than four months to go before the Games there is no need for any drastic decisions at this stage. . .”

There is no need for “drastic” decisions now.

What is needed is for the IOC to tell the truth about whether it is considering alternatives to 2020. It is foolhardy for the IOC to say speculation would be counter-productive when every person with a functioning brain is wondering what decisions the IOC might take if “drastic” action is needed and when such decisions might be made.

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Time for IOC to drop Pollyanna act and tell everyone there may be no Olympics in 2020

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Time for IOC to drop Pollyanna act and tell everyone there may be no Olympics in 2020

There are some 11,000 athletes hoping to compete at the Summer Olympics scheduled to open July 24 in Tokyo.

At this point, all those athletes should be able to (choose a biblical or mythological metaphor):

*See the handwriting on the wall.

*Feel the sword of Damocles above their heads.

And yet the president of the International Olympic Committee and the Prime Minister of Japan refuse to acknowledge publicly the possibility the 2020 Summer Games won’t take place in 2020 – or ever.

In their hubristic refrain that the Games will go, these alleged leaders provide unjustifiable encouragement to athletes whose preparation and qualification processes already have been severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

These athletes, who get an Olympic opportunity once every four years, deserve honesty, not self-interested, Panglossian avoidance of reality.

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Jason Brown on finding his self-worth, skating to "Schindler's List" and his transformed technique

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Jason Brown on finding his self-worth, skating to "Schindler's List" and his transformed technique

This interview with Jason Brown was done a week before the 2020 World Figure Skating Championships were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. It was planned as an advance story for the event but had not been published before Wednesday’s cancellation announcement.

Because nearly all my questions addressed general rather than worlds-specific areas, I thought figure skating fans still would like to read it. I have edited some things to reflect the changed situation.

First, though, this statement Brown sent me by text soon after the cancellation was announced.

“I’m disappointed not to have the opportunity to compete at worlds. At the same time, I recognize this situation is way bigger than me or figure skating, and I’m 100% in support of doing everything we can to protect each other and our communities.”

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Evan Lysacek's golden performances seem surreal to him 10 years later

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Evan Lysacek's golden performances seem surreal to him 10 years later

Last month, when Evan Lysacek was speaking to students in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in his role as a sports envoy for the U.S. Department of State, the presentation included a showing of his figure skating short program and free skate from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Lysacek rarely skates these days. He last did something that could be called a public performance when Ice Theatre of New York honored him in October 2016. With an ankle ligament still sore from a misstep injury that threatened to have him in a cast for his wedding last Dec. 14, he shuffled briefly around the ice while working with skaters in Malaysia

That detachment from the sport has made it difficult for him to believe what he was seeing in the video of the greatest performances of his career.

“It’s surreal to watch,” Lysacek said. “When I think of what it took to get there, I think, ‘How did I ever do that?’”

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