Bach assured of good governance and autonomy

The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, said that he has had assurances from the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the sports ministry to uphold “good governance” and “autonomy” respectively.

Stressing on the oft-repeated phrase that good governance and autonomy were the two sides of the same coin, Bach, visiting India for the second time after 2015, said that there would be a quadripartite panel of experts from the IOC, Olympic Council of Asia, IOA and sports ministry to not only study the issues of compliance and autonomy, but also “to devise a road map on how best to prepare the Indian athletes for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.”

Appreciating the expression of good governance as a priority by the IOA, under the “dynamic leadership of Narinder Batra”, and the sports ministry recognising “the autonomy of sport”, Bach pointed out that the UN General Assembly had also recognised the autonomy of sport.

Uniform rules

“Otherwise, no international sport can happen. Unless we have same rules everywhere in the world, you can’t have fair competition”, he said.

He hoped both the IOA and the government would be clear about the requirements and not cross the line, leading to a situation which happened a few years ago when India was suspended from the Olympic movement.

Bach said the visit of the IOC delegation could not have been timed better as the country was rejoicing after its fine performance in the CWG, which had provided a strong hint of the “potential of Indian athletes”.

He expressed confidence that India would tap on its great potential and win many medals and put on a strong performance on the Olympic stage.

The IOC president was impressed with the assurance given by sports minister Rajyavardhan Rathore that “fair and clean sports was the first priority of the government”.

‘no needle policy’

IOA president Narinder Batra said that the ‘no needle policy’ would be adopted at the national level as well as in training camps etc., to strengthen anti-doping measures.

On being queried about the possibility of IOC’s intervention in reinstating shooting at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Bach said the Olympics Games were different from Commonwealth Games and that the “IOC has no intention to drop shooting from the Olympic programme”.

Batra said that the matter would be taken up with the organisers, but underlined the point that ‘boycotting’ the CWG was “too extreme”.

On the possibility of electronic games being part of the Olympics in future, Bach clarified that physical activity, concentration and quick reaction alone would not suffice and that such games need to comply with the values and principles of the Olympic Movement.

“E-Games which present violence or any kind of discrimination can never be recognised as part of the Olympic Movement,” said Bach.

While Batra emphasised that the IOA would recognise any National federation recognised by the international federation, Bach said that there was an entire department in the IOC dealing with such issues. Batra assured that the IOA would also strike a gender balance.