The favorite to become the next president of the International Olympic Committee has opened the door for the Summer Games to be held in Saudi Arabia in winter.
The Gulf State is considering a bid to host the 2036 Olympics, after being awarded the World Cup in 2034.
And Juan Antonio Samaranch, who is challenging Britain’s Lord Coe to replace IOC chief Thomas Bach, welcomes the idea of bringing the Games to the Middle East for the first time.
When asked directly by Mail Sport if he could imagine Saudi Arabia as a future Olympic host, the Spaniard said: “If I am true to my assertion that universality is the centerpiece of what we do, then we cannot close our eyes to the fact that under the current situation Under these circumstances, a significant part of the world’s population cannot even dream of hosting an Olympic Games.
‘This is an important part of Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Southern Europe and an important part of Central America.
“So we have to make sure we give all these parts of the world the chance to compete fairly to host the Olympic Games.”
Saudi Arabia is currently considering a surprising bid to host the Summer Olympics in 2036.
Juan Antonio Samaranch, favorite to become the next IOC president, has opened the door to the Gulf State to host the Games
The news comes after Saudi Arabia won the 2034 FIFA World Cup last week.
The Summer Olympics have not been held beyond October since Melbourne 1956, which took place from November 22 to December 8.
But Samaranch insists he would have no problem changing the traditional dates of the Games to suit the climate if Saudi Arabia were to host, just as FIFA is doing with the 2034 World Cup.
“I don’t see the possibility of the weather adapting to our calendar, so we will have to adapt the calendar to our weather,” he said.
The manifestos of the seven candidates for the IOC presidency were launched on Thursday ahead of the March elections.
As current IOC vice president, Samaranch – whose father was president from 1980 to 2001 – is considered Coe’s biggest rival for the job.
“I’m not going to call him a rival, but I can call him an extraordinary friend for many, many years,” Samaranch said of Coe. ‘I wish him the best. He is an extraordinary, complete and very impressive person.
“I’m sure he will come with very compelling proposals; on some of them we might be on the same page, and on many of them we will be on opposite ideas.”
One area where Samaranch has an opposite idea from Coe is prize money for athletes.
If Saudi Arabia hosts the Games, they will be held during the winter due to the extreme summer weather.
Samranach is considered Lord Sebastian Coe’s biggest rival for the position of IOC president
Samranach does not believe that Olympic medalists should receive financial reward for their achievements
Coe has suggested that all Olympic medalists should receive a financial reward, having donated $50,000 to athletics gold medalists at Paris 2024 in his position as president of World Athletics.
But Samaranch said: ‘I have a very strong opinion on this. Ninety percent of Olympic money is redistributed between national Olympic committees, international federations and the bottom of the pyramid.
Taking that money to reward the Olympic champions, the icing on the cake, is redundant.
‘They are Olympic athletes, they have many rewards, socially and financially, through their sponsors and their national Olympic committees. It’s a bit redundant to have an extra prize directed at them.
“I would prefer to use that money and distribute it among all Olympic and non-Olympic athletes, to make the sports world as flat as possible. We don’t want to reward only those who are already at the top.”
Samaranch agrees with Coe in thinking that the IOC should “take the lead” in “protecting the integrity of women’s sports,” crafting a strong transgender policy for all Olympic sports.
Alarmingly, though, he doesn’t believe the IOC did anything wrong in Paris, when Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting were allowed to win golds in women’s boxing despite being disqualified from the World Boxing Championships. last year for not passing gender eligibility tests.
“In boxing, these women have always competed as women and we had to defend their right to participate in the Olympic Games as they had done in the previous Olympic Games,” she added. ‘There wasn’t a single piece of evidence that they shouldn’t do it.
‘We had to focus a lot on trying to protect them from the global harassment they suffered. That is unfair and is a demonstration of our commitment to standing up for people who have differences.’