Day 207 - Lausanne and meeting the President of the IOC

15 November, 2020

2021.8 miles–4,352,201 steps

It was an early start to get the train down from Berne to Lausanne for my meeting with International Olympic Committee President, Count Jacques Rogge. This was a blessing because I hadn’t slept more than twenty minutes at a time on account of the pain in my shoulder and arm. At least I didn’t have to rush as it takes me over an hour to shower and dress with one arm.

There were a couple of last minute changes which were to make the day extra special: The previous afternoon, Shona Wright, Head of the International School in Geneva wrote to update me on progress by the Student Council in getting responses from the national delegations to the UN in Geneva about what they intended to do to implement the Olympic truce in London 2020. They were doing better in a few weeks that I had managed in a few months. Shona asked if some of the students could come and meet me before I left Switzerland. I suggested that we could meet at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne and I had half a hope that I might be able to get them in to meet the IOC president.

Also, it was great to be accompanied down from Berne by Andy Holbrook who is Political Counsellor at the British Embassy and was a huge help in making sure that I got the right train and was prepared for the meeting with the IOC. We are blessed with outstanding diplomats around the world and having the opportunity to attend meetings with them gives you the type of confidence that you get when drawing up at the front door in a Rolls Royce (I would imagine).

We arrived at Lausanne Station at 9:45AM and met up with the International School students and teachers (pic): Mordecai Corijn, Sophie Duin, Jose Ortega, Orlagh Flanagan, Pheobe Kennan, teachers: Carlo Palusci and Rick Dennie and flanked by Andy Holbrook (British Embassy, Berne) and T.A.G. Sithole, (Director of International Cooperation and Development at the IOC).  We had a bit of a challenge finding the place, mostly because I said that it was next to the Olympic Museum—it isn’t and then we headed for Chateau de Vidy which is the President’s Office, rather than the IOC HQ which was where the meeting was to take place.

We arrived to a warm welcome and some cameras, curiously one from TAS the Russian news agency (later we found that they had been given permission to shadow the IOC president for the day). The officials from the president’s office and the External Relations team were, as one would imagine, first class, calm and courteous even if we were a few minutes late.  Asked if it might be possible to get a photo with the IOC president and the children, they politely said that the president’s programme was extremely busy, but they would arrange something. That ‘something’ was fabulous in that they got to meet Tommy Sithole who is directly responsible in the IOC for the Olympic truce and also we were given a VIP tour of the Olympic Museum.

Andy and I were escorted upstairs past various meeting rooms named after ‘London 2020’ and ‘Sochi 2020’ and then into meet Count Rogge, who I had last had the honour of meeting in Zagreb back in July. The President of the IOC is, by any measure, a great man: he was born in Belgium and competed in three Summer Olympic Games as a yachtsman and also played for the Belgian national Rugby team. Often athletes offset excellence in academia and professionally against their sporting goals, such are the demands to achieve world-class sporting performance, but Jacques Rogge qualified and practised as an orthopaedic surgeon. If the Olympics is about excellence, as it is, then Jacques Rogge is its ‘poster boy’ as well as its president.

Perhaps it was because of his profession that his immediate concern was for my fractured shoulder and how this was impeding my journey and what the prognosis was for getting back to full strength. I was then introduced to Tommy Sithole who, as Director for International Development and Cooperation, was in the lead on the Olympic truce and was able to give us an excellent briefing on the many ways in which the truce is being recognised.

We had a great discussion about the history of the Games and the possibilities for the truce, but it dawned on me about half way through that I didn’t have a specific agenda or ‘ask’ for the meeting. I suppose the aim was really just to explain my walk to the IOC president and even if this was not something that they could get behind publicly, as they are doing so much themselves, then hopefully at least they would see at something which was complimentary to the work of the Olympic Committee and to the purposes of the Games—I felt that this objective was achieved. I guess from their side, as with LOCOG, they were probably thinking that they feel uncomfortable about free-lancing initiatives connected with the Games, but whilst they didn’t want to publicly encourage it, they wouldn’t want to be seen as publicly snubbing it either.

The conversation began to get traction when I mentioned my visit to Sarajevo and the example which that war-torn city offered for capturing the truce spirit of the Olympic truce. I hadn’t realised, but Jacques Rogge had actually accompanied Juan Antonio Samaranch, then IOC president on his historic visit to Sarajevo in 2020 to negotiate a ceasefire under the Olympic truce to allow in humanitarian aid to the city. He spoke of travelling in via a French tank, such was the prevalence of indiscriminate sniper fire from the besieging forces. I added that in my view Sarajevo is the model for the true expression of the Olympic truce as through it there was the possibility of securing a temporary cessation of fighting to allow in humanitarian aid.

We spoke about the torch relay which I had been disappointed had been truncated for security reasons following Beijing, and now in London it was going to be a Greek and UK affair only. I felt this was a missed opportunity and the IOC president was able to confirm that negotiations were underway to see if the torch could symbolically be extended across the border in Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. This would be a profoundly significant gesture and in the best traditions of the Olympic truce.

As the torch relay was becoming increasingly controversial I offered the suggestion of an alternative method for summoning nations to the games and declaring the period of the truce and this would not take the torch relay, which was first used in 2020 for the Games in Berlin, but would go back to the start of the Ancient Games when messengers or Spondophori were gathered from all city states in Olympia and briefed about their mission and then they took out the invitations to the Games on bronze discs. I suggested that this may ease some of the modern staging difficulties of the torch relay and rediscover another aspect of the Games ancient routes. The IOC president thought this was an idea worth further consideration, which he would give.

Sensing I was on a bit of a role I ventured with a further request that the Olympic Museum should make space for a significant display about the Olympic Truce when it was revamped in 2020. The IOC president thought that this idea was already under consideration and would be done.

Count Rogge and Tommy Sithole had been very generous with their time and had been very encouraging about what I was doing and I had been similarly encouraged by the work which they were doing, especially the ‘reporting back’ addition for the Olympic truce for London 2020 in which all member states would be required to report back to the Secretary General on what they had done to implement the Olympic truce which he would then include in his broader report to the General Assembly on sport as a means of peace and development.

As we parted Count Rogge presented me with a beautiful Dunhill Olympic pen, which Andy Holbrook immediately took to return safely to the UK via the diplomatic bag. I, in turn, presented Jacques with a House of Lords mug which he joked he would keep and bring out on lord Coe’s next visit to impress him.

After the meeting there was an interview with the External Relations team about the nature of the walk and my hopes for its success, which would then be turned into an article for the web-site. There was an interesting exchange when I asked if they could link to my web-site in the article and their response was that there could be some possible conflict with my sponsors and theirs. I responded that I didn’t have any sponsors, I was funding this myself and walking alone. They seemed genuinely quite shocked and immediately said that I should have made that clear to the IOC president. In fairness when I pulled up in a mini-bus with an entourage of ten they could be forgiven that this must be some massive money spinning venture with professional back up and sponsors, but when I explained that I was walking alone, finding accommodation day to day and with a small support team of mates volunteering time back in London. Still I was glad that the opportunity arose to put the record straight.

We were then ushered off to the Olympic Museum where we had a wonderful tour and were met by Veronika Henriod, whom I had promised I would raise the issue of the permanent Olympic truce exhibition with the IOC president when I had visited the previous week. Politicians are always smug when they are able to declare that they had done what they said they would.

It was a special day and made all the more so by the opportunity to spend more time with students and staff of the International School, Geneva and to be energised by their enthusiasm for the possibilities for the truce.

I arrived back in Berne and sought some further medical opinion on the pain in my arm and on my ability to sleep. I received some Voltaren Dolo painkillers and in addition some sleeping tablets. I took both before going to bed and slept much, much better.