IOC President Jacques Rogge will visit the United States next week to participate in the Fifth IOC Conference on Women in Sport and speak at a public forum during the USC Conference on Sports. He will join other experts who will share their insights about key success factors at Olympic events and the history and political context of the Olympics.
On Wednesday, February 15, Rogge will be the guest of honor at the Town & Gown discussion on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The rapid succession of historic Olympic events will make this particularly timely. The IOC organized both an International Olympic Congress event in Baden-Baden, Germany and the IOC Athletes Congress in Colorado, Springs last autumn. These vents were followed by the first ever Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria last month. The London 2012 Festival events for the next Cultural Olympiad begin March 3, leading up to the largest Olympic event in history, the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London. The 2012 Paralympic Games expect participation to double from eight years ago. Maintaining this level of growth would be a challenge for any organization, let alone a non-profit whose finances are highly dependent upon television broadcast rights challenged by a very competitive advertising market.
Rogge will be joined at the IOC Conference on Women in Sport by Lord Sebastian Coe, the President of the London 2012 organization. Over six hundred distinguished female athletes from around the world are also expected, although international competition schedules will prevent several dozen top winter sports athletes from traveling to the events in Los Angeles.
Several of the panels at the USC Conference on Sports will highlight the important role that Olympic programs have played in world diplomacy. Susan Brownell from the University of Missouri will join Nick Cull, director of the USC Annenberg Master of Public Diplomacy degree program, to discuss “The Olympics and International Diplomacy.” Robert Edelman from the University of California at San Diego and Yann Descamps of the University of Paris will report on the impact that the Olympics has had on the shaping of national identities.
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