PARIS — International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidential candidate Juan Antonio Samaranch Junior told AFP he has the experience to deal with heads of state in a rapidly changing world where previously undisputed truths such as “universality, fraternity and unity” are now disputed.
“It’s a very complex world,” the urbane banker said in an interview at AFP’s headquarters on Wednesday.
The 65-year-old Spaniard and his six rivals to succeed Thomas Bach as the most powerful person in global sport will learn their fate when their fellow IOC members vote on March 20 in the Greek resort of Costa Navarino.
If successful Samaranch Junior would make history — his father of the same name was IOC president from 1980 to 2001 and transformed the organisation into a commercial powerhouse.
He was first elected an IOC member the year his father stepped down and has forged a successful career within the body. He was elected vice-president in 2016 and again in 2022 while also occupying other high-profile roles.
All of which, he says, has given him the skillset to handle the rapidly shifting sands around the globe since Donald Trump was reelected US president.
“I think that the paradigm in which we live for the last 50 years about peace, order, it’s being really challenged,” Samaranch Junior said.
“So we are looking at a world which is pretty complicated, but the key word to me is experience.”
He admits he does not have all the answers but he has the cool head required to deal with the plethora of problems that will arise.
“You have to have the relevant experience, and yes, I’ve been involved for many, many years, both in business experience, dealing with world business leaders, and in Olympic and non-Olympic matters with heads of state,” he said.
Samaranch said things are so serious globally that one quality alone must be in the IOC members’ minds when they vote.
“It is not about the face or the gender, or the continent,” he said.
“Even in the easiest of times, we should elect the best person for the job.
“This is too important and too relevant for too many people to experiment.”
‘War chamber’
Even the normally unflappable Samaranch appears astonished by the rapidity with what was generally accepted as the basic tenets of society being turned on their head.
“Our job is going to be more difficult,” he said.
“Until a year ago or six months ago, we could go anywhere. We say universality, fraternity, unity. And that was undisputed truth.
“Now it’s a very disputed truth.”
Samaranch, though, says such sweeping change makes the IOC even more relevant.
“Our values, I think, are more needed in the world than ever before because we are one of the only beacons left of this idea of universality, fraternity.
“The Olympics continue to be or are right now, unfortunately, one of the very, very few islands of hope of universality... and trumpeting and celebrating differences among humanity.”
As for his own leadership style, he says he wants it to be more collegiate and he should be in a better position to put that into practice than Bach was for part of his tenure.
“He has lived through the extraordinary years of Covid, not travelling, not being able to communicate in person with anybody, so that created a tendency of those crisis years... dealing with [the] Tokyo [Olympics] being postponed,” said Samaranch.
“That created a ‘war chamber’ with him and the administration, so it is very easy to understand.
“So I think unless something similar happens, my idea is we need to go back to the more usual governance that we had, which is all the IOC members together.”
Samaranch said last year’s Paris Olympics were the best Games he has ever attended but one dark cloud hung over Bach’s final one in charge — the issue of transgender athletes and those whose gender eligibility is questioned, such as two of the gold medal-winning women boxers.
Samaranch acknowledged the issue had created “social alarm” and the world expected leadership from the IOC.
His response, if elected, would be to set up a “scientific council” to establish a clear line to “ensure full protection of the women category” — and he says a solution is required before the 2026 Winter Olympics.
“We should have that before the Games in Milano-Cortina. It is urgent,” he said.
“We want to have extraordinary Games in Milano-Cortina, and we want to make sure every shadow that we can avoid and every issue that can be solved before to make the event shine, we have to do it.
“So it’s just a matter of working. If it’s a short time, we work harder. It’s not about money, it’s about intelligence.”
Much has been made of his late father’s Olympic past but while he says he is “beyond proud” of Samaranch Senior’s achievements at the IOC he says the body is now unrecognisable to the one he ran.
“Nothing of what he and all these extraordinary people did to bring Olympism back to life, nothing of what they encountered are remotely relevant today,” he said.
