COMMUNITY SPECIAL: IOC Members, IF Presidents and more discuss Rio success

The Rio Olympic Games came to a close almost a month ago, with the build-up to the Games fraught with negative stories about, amongst other things, construction delays, health fears over Zika, safety issues in Rio and the failure of the state government to clean up the polluted Guanabara Bay.

But as the Games got underway, the negative stories began to dissipate, with focus turning to sporting achievement, competition, and athletes.

This was something that was not lost on the iSportconnect community. IF Presidents, IOC Members and other sports professionals were keen to express their views on the positives of the Rio Games under the discussion ‘Can we call Rio a success?’.

Prof Uğur Erdener, IOC Executive Board Member and President of World Archery was happy with the overall presentation of Archery in Brazil.

He said:  “Archery was a success at Rio 2016 and we had the samba feeling at our venue. The performance of the athletes created exciting matches, early broadcast viewing figures are extremely positive and the feedback from our stakeholders was excellent. The key things were that the athletes gave positive feedback and that the TV images looked great thanks to the excellent work of OBS.

We had the first world record of the Olympics, thanks to Kim Woojin, record-high viewers in Germany, France and Korea, and four of the five Olympic continents walked away with medals.”

And what of Rio itself? With all the negativity going into the games, Bruno Grandi, president of the FIG (Federation Internationale de Gymnastique) and IOC Member believes the Brazilian capital was a perfect host.

He said: “The Olympic Games have always had a special appeal that makes them more beautiful than any other championship. Taken as a whole, the Rio Games have been positive. As always, there have been difficulties, but the appeal of the Games remains unaffected. The meaning of the Olympic Games extends beyond sport. 

They are an anthropological phenomenon, and Rio respected this great human tradition and the historical privilege of hosting the Games.”

Grandi’s opinion that Rio was a success is something that has been echoed by fellow IOC Member Richard Peterkin.

Peterkin had expressed before the Games that they had been met with the ‘perfect storm of bad news’ but it appears he thinks that Rio has weathered the storm.

He said: “While I happily accept that as an IOC Member, I had better access and privileges than most at the Games, my sincerely believe that the Games were wonderful. I think that the challenges were probably exaggerated prior to the Games (or to use Lochte’s term – traumatic over-exaggeration), and many came with lowered expectation, but even with this, there were many uplifting experiences.

The venues were superb, the athletes excelled, the standard bearers (Bolt, Phelps, Ledecky, Farah etc) made their statements and lots of new stars emerged. Many countries achieved first golds or first medals, and there was a general feeling of happiness and goodwill in most cases. No mosquitoes, no violence, no local politics or demonstrations, but typical Brazilian warmth from spectators and volunteers”

While overall Peterkin was positive in his assessment of the Games, he did however, have some minor negative thoughts.

He Continued: “Sure, the traffic was terrible (always is at big city games), attendance at many venues were under par, and food at the athlete’s village and venues could have been better, but these negatives were so minor in the grand scale of things. Rio delivered, the athletes delivered, and the Games were riveting for billions all over the world.

“My country (Saint Lucia) won no medals, but we achieved a placing in a final (Women’s High Jump – Levern Spencer) for the first time ever. In these competitive times, you take what you can get and use it to inspire athletes for the future. It was, by all standards, marvellous.”

Rio broke new ground in terms of media coverage while sports themselves were breaking new ground. Modern Pentathlon introduced their Pentathlon Stadium for the first time, a concept which saw the majority of their events held in the same place – with swimming set to be added to the concept in Tokyo.

This was one of many new features for UIPM, as Jonathan Coates, UIPM Communications, explained: “For the first time, UIPM sent a media team to cover Modern Pentathlon’s Olympic programme at Rio 2016. For me, as a former Olympic Games newspaper journalist now working in communications, I was able to see how much work is put in behind the scenes by a relatively small International Federation team, and it was a real eye-opener.

The complexity of the Modern Pentathlon event (different venues, different equipment, horses as well as humans) demands experienced personnel and yet UIPM was able to use its staff resources for content gathering, venue preparation and dressing and media management as well as event supervision in conjunction with the Rio 2016 Local Organizing Committee and the IOC.”

All eyes will now turn to Tokyo 2020 and in Brazil, the locals will hope to see the legacy promised when they won the Games.

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