Recently elected by his peers with almost all the votes (he was only one short!), Ivan Coste-Manière, the boisterous new president of the Azurean Olympic Committee (which includes the Alpes-Maritimes and the Var), always between meetings and travels, agreed to answer our questions and outline the path of this new mission he approaches with his usual enthusiasm.
Upon reading his ideas and program, there is no doubt that his peers made a wise choice by placing their vote with his name in the ballot box.
Ready, set…
Nice Premium: You have just been elected head of the regional institutional sports body of French sports: would you like to introduce your sports background to our readers and how you got here?
Ivan Coste-Manière: I practiced skiing, handball, and athletics in competition from ages 10 to 28, winning a few titles and benefiting from High-Level Athlete status during my studies. As a Federal Judge, Coach, and President of the Grasse Athletic Club almost continuously for 30 years, elected similarly to the Boards of Directors of the Côte d’Azur Athletics League and the Departmental Committee of the Alpes Maritimes, where I am currently co-President, I am also the President of the Saint Raphael East Varois Aeroclub and a member in shooting at Avenir de Grasse. Olympism was, therefore, a clear path since I have been a member of the Board of Directors of the Departmental Olympic and Sports Committee of the Alpes Maritimes and of the Regional Olympic and Sports Committee of the Côte d’Azur for 8 years.
Nice Premium: What is your vision of sports in society?
Ivan Coste-Manière: Sports remain a fundamental value in society. Discipline, respect for rules, for the opponent, and striving for optimization of performance are its essence. It instills the ability to ignore low blows, provides energy, endurance, resilience, serves as a firewall against racism, and so many other drifts… Beyond these standards, sports catalyze territorial planning and today present as a tremendous economic player, equal opportunity, or promoter of health and well-being. It aligns with societal shifts and has a highly unifying role for communities.
Nice Premium: What legacy do you inherit? Do you plan to adopt a new strategy, or are you following in the footsteps of your predecessors?
Ivan Coste-Manière: Examples. To follow and amplify. From Michel Fihue and Pierre Cambréal to Nawal El Moutawakel Bennis, all members of the Olympic community I have had the chance to meet and have as friends know how to discern, share and manage. They have an overview that allows them to overcome divides, to find a common and most consensual foundation.
Without speaking of a “new” strategy, I hope to leverage my strengths and further reduce my weaknesses. Combined events and the decathlon often work with this dual logic, and the legacy of my predecessors is already extremely significant over the 43 years of CROS Côte d’Azur’s existence.
The new contours of territorial networks will undeniably be central to many decisions of my Directing Committee composed of highly representative members of the sports movement in the broadest sense. Being elected almost unanimously gives rights, but above all duties. Communication, pedagogy, consensus, negotiation, ecumenism, these are the keywords for the actions to come, which will remind me of the years spent at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council in Paris or the courses in various countries worldwide with SKEMA, with as many interlocutors to reach a good choice with.
Nice Premium: How do you assess the health of the Azurean sports world? What will be the main focuses of your mandate? Do you have a team around you?
Ivan Coste-Manière: Exceptional if I base it on comparative analysis with other regions, with one of the best “scores” regarding the number of high-level athletes. The Côte d’Azur trails only Ile de France and Nord Pas de Calais by this criterion. Local communities have well integrated sports into their development policies, and we benefit from rare attentiveness from them.
The clubs have well adapted to the constraints of professionalization in management and training practices. And Health Sports is a reality on the territory. The competition-leisure-health triptych is gradually balancing out, and we need to help this systematic search. Nature Sports, Women in Sports, disadvantaged audiences, as well as adaptive and health sports, will certainly be at the heart of discussions in the coming months. The High-Level Unit must also be quickly developed, and I have no doubt about the help of our friends Victoria Rava and Stephane Diagana for this aspect.
As for “Team CROS CA,” it has always existed, despite changes in leadership, and has shown its mobilization in past turbulent periods by rallying around a single candidature almost unanimously at our last General Assembly. This can only fuel the punch to calmly face the challenges ahead, and CDOS 06 and 83 reaffirmed an unwavering unity at our last Board meeting.
Nice Premium: Will the planned territorial reforms also change the organization of the sports world? What do you think of a single regional Olympic and Sports Committee?
Ivan Coste-Manière: I return from the General Assembly of the CESE Amicale at the Palais d’Iéna, and an expanded inter-region meeting of CROS. The observation is evident: the law promulgated, there remain many zones of opacity, both in terms of timing, reorganizations, order-givers, or attachment communities or federations…
These gray areas will need to disappear after many consultations and negotiations to claim synergies at all levels. From Clubs to Leagues, from Committees to Federations, the calm foundation is not in place to reach this level of efficiency. To date, the CROS Côte d’Azur has demonstrated its vital necessity for our territory. Ongoing negotiations will help better discern a potential solution in the higher interest of all concerned parties, and there is no real urgency identified.
Nice Premium: Paris is very likely to bid for the 2024 Olympics: what do you think of this candidacy, and would it be possible for the sailing events to be held in the Mediterranean basin?
Ivan Coste-Manière: Delighted with this possibility. And we will drive forward to support this significant candidacy. 2012 remains in my memory, as does the mobilization we managed to provoke for Nice’s Winter Olympics bid.
We will need to do even better: further, higher, stronger!
And sailing in our basin, around our culture, a few miles from Olympus, what better to dream of? The release of the new CNOSF logo and consequently that of CROS and CDOS comes at just the right time. The CROS Côte d’Azur will be one of the strongest vectors for this accomplished and deep candidacy for a project of this magnitude.
