AP Interview: IOC president to meet with USOC leaders in Vancouver to improve ties

AP Interview: Rogge to meet with USOC leaders

LONDON — IOC president Jacques Rogge will meet with the top two leaders of the U.S. Olympic Committee in Vancouver next month to begin healing the troubled relations that led to Chicago’s humiliating defeat for the 2016 Games.

Rogge told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that he has arranged a meeting with USOC chairman Larry Probst and new chief executive officer Scott Blackmun as part of an effort to improve ties and bring the American body back into the international fold.

“There is a lot of goodwill on both sides,” Rogge said. “The IOC wishes to have a very good relationship with what is still today in sport the No. 1 national Olympic committee in terms of results.

“I’ve heard and read very good things about the intention of Scott Blackmun and Larry Probst to engage better the USOC in the mainstream of international activities.”

Rogge said the meeting will take place in Vancouver before or during the Feb. 12-28 Winter Games.

“We will discuss the common issues. How can the USOC participate stronger in the Olympic movement? What do we expect from the USOC and vice versa?” Rogge said by telephone from Lausanne, Switzerland. “They will also say, ‘What we do we expect from the IOC?’”

Rogge said International Olympic Committee and USOC officials also would meet separately in Vancouver to discuss the thorny financial issues that have caused resentment among many IOC members.

Rogge and Probst spoke by phone after Blackmun’s appointment as CEO on Jan. 5. Blackmun, who officially takes over for Stephanie Streeter on Jan. 26, will be in charge of turning around the USOC’s international standing.

Rogge said he met Blackmun when he served as the USOC’s interim CEO in 2000. Rogge, who was elected IOC president in 2001, paid a visit to the USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Counting his own interim stint, Blackmun will be the seventh USOC leader since 2000. A decade of revolving-door and ineffective leadership has isolated the USOC in the international Olympic world, but Rogge is hopeful that Blackmun’s appointment will usher in a new era.

“He comes with a very good reputation,” Rogge said. “There seems to be a lot of praise coming from all sides in the United States, so that bodes well. The advantage is he knows sport and the USOC very well.”

The lack of U.S. influence in the IOC was brought home by Chicago’s last-place finish in the October vote in Copenhagen for the 2016 Games, which were awarded to Rio de Janeiro. Chicago was eliminated in the first round of the four-city contest with just 18 votes. That followed New York’s early defeat in 2005 for the 2012 Olympics.

Rogge was cautious when asked whether he would encourage another bid from the U.S., which last hosted the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City and 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.

“I would say in general I always welcome bids emanating from well organized … countries, of course,” he said. “We always welcome bids.”

The United States is unlikely to bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics, but Probst said this week that candidacy for the 2022 Winter Games was a possibility.

“It’s up to them to decide where their priorities lie,” Rogge said.

One of the biggest sticking points in the USOC-IOC relationship is a revenue-sharing agreement that has been lingering for years. Many IOC members and international officials are annoyed that the USOC still gets a 20 percent cut of sponsorship revenue and 12.75 percent share of U.S. broadcasting deals.

The two sides agreed last year to begin negotiations on the revenue-sharing dispute in 2013. Before that, Rogge said, they will talk in Vancouver about a separate financial issue — how much the USOC should pay toward so-called “games-time” expenses, including the cost of anti-doping operations and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.