Federal agents subpoenaed a high-ranking swimming official, prompting an IOC power play to halt the investigation and secure the 2034 Winter Olympics for Salt Lake City.
Sports and law enforcement officials say they have rarely, if ever, seen such a raw exercise of power politics as what happened with the awarding of the 2034 Winter Olympics . In late June, federal agents working on a complex investigation were secretly positioned at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, tracking a potentially key witness — a top international swimming official involved in the Olympics . The official, Brent Nowicki, was returning to Europe after attending the U.S.
Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis. Before he could board, the agents presented a startled Nowicki with a grand jury subpoena, demanding that he testify in a federal investigation into whether global sports authorities covered up positive tests by elite Chinese swimmers for a banned performance-enhancing drug. Even before the encounter, the Chinese positive tests had already become an Olympics controversy. But approaching Nowicki, only weeks before the start of the Summer Games in Paris, escalated the situation into a broader confrontation over the power to police global sports, with consequences possibly extending to who is allowed to host an Olympic Games. Soon after the subpoena was delivered, officials with the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency began a pressure campaign to shut down the federal investigation. Olympic officials threatened to hold up two things considered shoo-ins — the awarding of the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City and the elevation of the top U.S. Olympics official, Gene Sykes, to the powerful IOC. This all burst into view in late July, days before the opening ceremony in Paris: In an extraordinary public spectacle, Olympic officials staged a dramatic power play, pressing Sykes and other U.S. officials to help end the federal inquiries as a condition for receiving the bid. Sykes and the other Americans capitulated. Utah Go
Olympics 2034 Winter Olympics Salt Lake City International Olympic Committee World Anti-Doping Agency Drug Testing Power Politics Law Enforcement
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