 I thoroughly enjoyed this interview with Mr. Ben Avison over in the UK, of Host City, where we talked about some of the following topics: - The challenges of pulling off Tokyo 2020 - Social advancement and equity in sports - My overwhelmingly positive experiences with joining public and private investment via the LA84 Games and LA84 Foundation - How lessons learned from LA84 and other Games can potentially make LA28 one of the most successful Games in history - A little bit of personal development advice that the public can use in their own lives, from an athlete's perspective. Again, I thank Host City and Mr. Ben Avison for the opportunity to sit down and chat, which was a part of a greater program located here: Host City 2021, the largest meeting of cities and sports, business and cultural events. View the full conference here: https://www.hostcity.com/host-city-2021-demand-content
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 Earlier this month, I joined CGTN's Liu Xin (Liuxininbeijing) on her show, "The Point with Liu Xin." In this interview, I explain that my position has been the same for the past 41 years, since 1980: the Olympic Games and politics do not mix, and boycotts of the Games have NEVER enacted positive political or social changes. In fact, they only harm athletes, and also cause even MORE political division and hatred between countries and their people. There's a time and place for everything, and the Olympic Games remains a very poor choice for world nations to take their political arguments and disputes.  I was blessed and honored to be invited to the University of Massachusetts: Amherst for their "Executive in Residence" program. As part of this visit, I joined the Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management for a speech and Q&A session with interested students and faculty. We covered a variety of topics concerning sport management, administration, and even athletes' rights. I thank you again for the incredible opportunity to work with the next generation of athletes and sports professionals!  It was an honor and an experience to join the Sousa Mendes Foundation on a panel discussing the legacy of Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany. I was blessed to have been accompanied on the panel by STUART OWEN RANKIN, the grandson of the Olympic legend himself: Jesse Owens.
"Jesse Owens, the son of Alabama sharecroppers, was the Olympic champion who defeated Nazi ideology in Hitler’s stadium. He later served on the Board of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Meet his grandson, Stuart Owen Rankin, who will be in dialogue with Lori Weintrob, historian and Director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center. Representing the International Olympics Committee on the panel is Anita L. DeFrantz, a US Olympic medalist and Vice-President of the IOC." I hope you enjoy this historical discussion as I did, while remembering the life and times of Mr. Jesse Owens. -Anita LINK: https://youtu.be/GNI8j10kcQ0  Over my 34+ years involved in professional sports, from the IOC to national organizations, I have been involved in directing numerous investigations concerning cheating and doping. If there's one thing I've learned over this period, it's that, even if it takes years, cheaters almost always get caught eventually. In the case of the Olympic Games - cheaters caught after the fact can and will even have their medals retroactively stripped from them. It isn't worth it!
Link: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/ukraine-routinely-violated-doping-tests-rules-wada-1.6226735  With a focus on the Olympic portion of my career, many may not know that I have been a practicing civil rights attorney since 1977. In fact, aside from my sports career as an athlete, then later IOC member, I have been serving the LA84 Foundation for three decades while working as a lawyer.
I recently came across a growing phenomenon in the U.S. called "First Amendment Audits." Out of professional and personal curiosity, I started following @Amagansett Press on YouTube and, as an attorney, was pleasantly surprised by the professional demeanor of most of the police officers. Others, though, I feel are in dire need of training and education as far as their knowledge of citizens' basic rights. The U.S. Constitution and our personal rights have been subject to various attacks and reductions in recent years. I am hoping that public servants, and members of law enforcement, continue to be reminded how important their roles are as protectors of our rights: and how much responsibility has been bestowed upon them to do so. LINK: https://youtu.be/Rq3a3L1-xtA  Cheating and doping in the Olympic Games is strictly prohibited by the IOC, tarnishes the end goal of providing a fair and even playing field for sport, and is absolutely unacceptable.
As I wrote about in my book - My Olympic Life - the IOC oversees a program where drug samples from competitors are kept for years, even after competition takes place, and testing is done on a randomized and ongoing basis. Athletes who are caught cheating can have their awards retroactively stripped from them. What also gives me Deja Vu in this case is that the steroid drug detected from this athlete is STANOZOLOL - the exact same chemical that came up in another case of doping which I was involved with decades ago at the '88 Seoul Games. History doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it sure can rhyme. LINK: https://apnews.com/article/sports-2020-tokyo-olympics-europe-doping-azerbaijan-9c541fbac255bd02d82ec220f4410df3  Here's an interesting French language article with a bit of Olympic history in it. I also had the opportunity to be interviewed and contribute to the article. Though in French, it translates very nicely with Google. Check it out!
Link: https://www.informelles.media/histoire-des-jo-1997-anita-defrantz-devient-vice-presidente-du-cio/  The Coronavirus is no joke - I am wishing Madi a thorough and swift recovery, and congratulate her once again on her Gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games!
LINK: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/madi-wilson-covid-olympic-swimmer-hospitalized/ |
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