Sawt Falasteen - Scent of success? Samaranch bids to emulate father in IOC presidency race

Samaranch Junior cheerfully admitted in an interview with AFP he "could not distinguish a lavender from a lemon" -- but the 65-year-old Spaniard says the job taught him commercial nous.

Decades later he could see that hard-learned lesson bear fruit if he beats six rivals to succeed Thomas Bach as the most powerful person in global sport at next March's election.

If successful Samaranch Junior would make history -- his father of the same name was IOC president from 1980-2001 and transformed the organisation into a commercial powerhouse.

Samaranch Junior was elected an IOC member in the year his father stepped down but says "he never hoped his family name would be any help in developing his Olympic career" nor indeed "be held against" him.

The urbane Spaniard has forged a successful career in the IOC. He was elected vice-president in 2012 and has occupied other high-profile roles.

So after over two decades within the IOC, what can he promise the 100-plus members and the outside world he would bring to the presidency?

"Experience, perspective, judgement and collaboration," he said.

"It will require a lot of experience," he said. "It will require a lot of perspective to understand which fights to take and which fights not to take.

"You cannot win them all, so you better select them well.

"Bear in mind the president of the IOC needs to be there on the same footing with giants like the United States, China, the European Union and India and so you will need good judgement to be at that table.

"Lastly, you will not be able to do it alone, so collaboration is great."

The father of four, who enjoyed a successful career in banking after his dalliance with perfume, will need all four of those qualities with the challenges that lie ahead.

- Return of Russia -

Russia remains a burning issue -- it dogged Bach's tenure first with the doping scandal at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games and then with Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 which broke the Olympic truce as it began in between the Beijing Winter Games and the Winter Paralympics.

Samaranch says he understands emotions run high outside the IOC in querying why Russia should be welcomed back into the sporting fold -- Ukraine's Sports Minister Matviy Bidnyi told AFP this week Bach's successor should give Russia the cold shoulder.

However, Samaranch said once the Russians fulfil their obligations under the Olympic Charter -- which is not the case at the moment -- "we will have to try and bring the Russian Olympic Committee back into the game."

"The universe, the world is very complex, and there are very many different ways of looking at things," he explained.

"So we need a moral compass. We cannot just take one decision to the right and then decide to go to the left, depending on our personal feelings or anything else.

"Our moral compass is the Olympic Charter."

Referring to Russia, Samaranch said the IOC's priority was "defending the youth and athletes from the problems that might be arising from the attitudes or the actions of their governments."

He said the spark that lit the fuse for him to run was the "magic" of this year's Paris Games.

One of the few controversies though was in the women's boxing where gold medallists Algerian Imane Khelif and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting were embroiled in a gender row.

Although both had been thrown out of last year's world championships -- which were run by the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA) -- they were cleared by the IOC to compete in Paris.

Samaranch sticks by that decision and lambasts the "horrendous harassment they suffered through social media" and added: "I'm proud that we stand at their side and still do."

However, he says the issue of transgender athletes is a "different thing", and adds: "We have to protect 100% the safety and the level field of play in women's competitions."

He points to the statistic that in the 100 years since the previous Paris Games the level of participation by women had risen from 4% to 50%.

"It is a remarkable achievement not for us, but for society," he said.

"I'm not ready if I become president to accept and allow that we take one step backwards in that great achievement."

W.Mansour--SF-PST