“I’m lucky, it’s an incredible privilege”

Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs, 65 years old, Vice President of the IOC, is one of those seven candidates to lead the International Olympic Committee in election to take place at the IOC Session in Athens between March 18 and 21. Samaranch presented a 42-page manifesto, the most extensive and specific of the proposals. The Catalan financier living in Madrid and son of the 21-year-old IOC President, Juan Antonio Samaranch Torelló, highlights his “proven experience in sport and business, inside and outside the Olympic Movement.” A member of the IOC for 23 years, he attends Mundo Deportivo.

His prototype of a president is…

The next president of the IOC needs to have experience, good judgment, the ability to collaborate and involve the people around him in the project. I put together my program by talking to everyone, including almost all the members of the Committee over the past three months, to discuss in detail defining aspects and to help me form an opinion on what possible and convenient.

The Extraordinary Session on January 30 in Lausanne, where the candidates will present their program, is expected to be key. Or not?

Certainly, it will have more weight than the 2001 and 2013 elections. There are many new IOC members who are limited in their field of action. There are seven programs, I think members will study them in detail and have to decide. I am proud of the proposal I made, I thought about it for a long time and it is the result of many years of experience inside and outside the Olympic Movement. In my document 40 concrete actions are presented, therefore there is an action plan.

But seven is a lot of candidates…

I won’t compare skills. Yes, I can assure you that the other six candidates, if their project is chosen, are very qualified to carry out an important project and continue the continuation of the Olympic Movement. I have no doubt, no one is here to save anyone. I repeat that in the world we live in today you need experience, insight and judgment. And there are many people who will help you. And I think I’ve experienced that.

What do you think the IOC members who vote will value most when electing a new president?

It’s hard, the vote is very personal… there are many factors to make important, appropriate decisions, based on ethics and efficiency. Everything is the result of a lot of collaboration with all the members of the IOC, the Olympic family, society… and indeed it also includes the media, a very important speaker, the traditional and the digital ones.

Will Thomas Bach be neutral?

He said it and he certainly followed through on it.

What can be improved from the order of the German leader?

His mandate has been complex, especially as he has experienced the doping crisis, COVID and the pandemic, the postponement of the Tokyo Games for a year and then its celebration without an audience and the suspension of Russia’s participation as a country. . I learned a lot from him, he was a great president and made great progress. But something else is coming today.

If you hadn’t won in March in Athens, would you have considered ‘this is how we are’? Now or never?

Man, for a biological reason it’s now or never. ‘This is as far as we’ve come’ seems like an inappropriate term to me. I’m lucky, it’s an incredible privilege. I experienced fourteen Summer Games and ten Winter Games. If I lose, I will place myself under the command of the new president, help and continue to help the growth of the Olympic movement. If I win, I will live in Lausanne like my father did.

The Olympic Games? Did they make money, are the cities still interested?

The 2020 agenda of the IOC, which allows cities to adapt the Games to themselves and not the other way around, has made it easier to leave a legacy that is best for the population. Interest was very high for the first Olympic Games. which is not granted: now there are ten talks with territories and cities that want to organize the 2036 and 2040 Games At the moment, organizing the Games is a very good idea for a city that has the capacity to do so.

There are several outbreaks of war in the world: the Middle East, the Ukraine-Russia war… This situation is not helping everyone, don’t you think?

He mentions two conflicts of the 48 that are currently open on the planet. We cannot change the world or change the decisions of powerful nations, but we can try to make another world possible.

The 2026 World Cup will be held in three countries Will we see something similar at the Olympic Games?

We live from universality, that is why we exist. And what is changing is the value of sports competition, of the Olympic Games, the values ​​of being together, of competing fiercely but at the same time living as friends in the Olympic Village. I am afraid to bring our star values ​​towards a reality of simultaneous world championships in different territories. And I believe that this is not where we should go, that it distorts the essence of the Olympic Movement.

Should the IOC be governed like a company? You come from that world…

We are basically an NGO, but we generate 7.6 billion in the Olympic cycle. 92% was distributed to help organize the Games and to fund the world sports pyramid. To finance that, revenue must grow significantly over the next eight years. And that should be treated with a business mentality, done well, with professionalism, giving our business partners a fair return on their investment. The more money, the more things we can do, like having more scholarship athletes from the poorest countries.

What moment or image will you keep from being part of the Olympic Movement in 2001?

On the creation of the Olympic Refugees team. Even now I get emotional when I remember the image of it parading in Rio 2016. And then in our proposal we presented the candidacy for the Princess of Asturias Sports Award and it was chosen. a pride