IOC notebook: Advances, setbacks for women

The Olympic movement is slow to bring enough women into its leadership, IOC President Jacques Rogge acknowledged on Saturday at the close of a session that saw setbacks and advances for women.

GUATEMALA CITY — The Olympic movement is slow to bring enough women into its leadership, IOC President Jacques Rogge acknowledged on Saturday at the close of a session that saw setbacks and advances for women.
    ''The IOC should lead by example, and it is true that we don't have enough women, absolutely true,'' Rogge told a news conference at the end of the International Olympic Committee's annual assembly.
    Two women were among the four new IOC members who joined the committee, though only 16 of the 115 members are female.
    The powerful, 15-member executive board still has only one female member — Vice President Gunilla Lindberg of Sweden — after American Anita DeFrantz finished last in a race against three men for the only open seat on Saturday.
    ''I hope this is not something to suggest that women cannot be elected to the executive board again,'' said a stunned DeFrantz, who was once an IOC vice president.
    A temporary rules change approved on Saturday will make it harder to soon change that. It allowed three executive board members — all male — to seek immediate re-election by waiving a requirement they step aside for at least two years after their terms end next year.
    Rogge noted that four of the last eight new IOC assembly members are women ''and I intend to continue with that.''
    ''I am doing my best to pave the way to have more women'' in the IOC, he said, though the organization's membership changes slowly because re-election is nearly automatic, except for rare cases where members are publicly disgraced.
    The IOC has made quicker progress in promoting women's sports as a whole. Forty-five percent of the athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics are expected to be women.
    BLOGGING ROGGE: Leaders of the Olympic movement say they are determined to attract the young to sports — and incidentally to improve their flagging television ratings among younger viewers.
    Now the IOC's notably buttoned-down President Jacques Rogge says he's working on a blog.
    Rogge told a news conference on Saturday that he had already started blogging on a test basis and expected to see it opened to the public soon.
    Earlier in the week, he announced that the International Olympic Committee is revamping its Web site with more multimedia and even expects to sponsor sports-related video games.
    But he was more interested in his plan for a global Youth Olympics, approved during the weeklong IOC meetings.
    He said on Saturday that ''a half dozen'' cities already have expressed interest in holding the 2010 games and he expects 10 cities eventually to bid.
    NEW BLOOD: The IOC elected four new members on Saturday, all of them sports administrators and one of them a princess.
    Princess Haya, 33, is president of the International Equestrian Federation, and competed in show jumping for Jordan at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and in Europe.
    She is one of two wives of the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the daughter of Jordan's late King Hussein and patron of several charities.
    Unusual fact: According to some of her official biographies, Haya was the first woman in Jordan with a license to drive heavy trucks and articulated vehicles.
    Rita Subowo was the first woman elected president of the Indonesian Olympic Committee, and she was executive vice president of the International Volleyball Federation.
    Andres Botero heads the Colombian Olympic Committee and the international water skiing body. He competed at the 1972 Munich Games when water skiing was a demonstration sport.
    Switzerland's Patrick Baumann barely won election, getting just 47 votes of the 91 possible. Four other Swiss already serve in the IOC assembly.
    Rogge pointed out that Baumann represents the International Basketball Federation, but said ''sometimes the members think there may be too many members of the same nationality.''
    India, with about 1 billion people, has only one IOC member.

— The Associated Press