Jānis Buks: The New President of the Latvian Olympic Committee Takes Office Amid Controversy and Reforms

Žoržs Tikmers will go down in history as the first president of the Latvian Olympic Committee since the restoration of independence, who did not serve even one term of office. On July 11, Jānis Buks was elected as the new president of LOK.

It was Buk who was one of the public leaders of Tikmera’s opposition, so it is significant that the first job in his new position was the liquidation of the board of the Daugavpils Olympic Center.

Interview – Jānis Buks, president of LOK

As the president of LOK, Georges Tikmers was a member of this council, for which he also earned a working car. It was the management style within the Olympic movement that became one of Tickmer’s stumbling blocks. The revealed information about the participation of Tickmer’s ex-wife and current spouse in several companies that provide services to the Olympic centers and the Olympic Committee was not known to the general public, but several influential people in the sports system knew about it and remained silent for years.

When Tikmer assumed the position of LOK president, he pushed aside several well-informed long-time colleagues from the reins of power. President of the Latvian Hockey Federation, Aigars Kalvītis, also emphasized this in his speech at the Extraordinary General Assembly of the LOK, mentioning the excessive reliance on the political environment of the previous LOK board – Tikmers and Kārļas Lejnieks – as a mistake.

Interview – Aigars Kalvītis, LHF president

“This reliance led to, first of all, reckoning with former LOK employees, functionaries, managers. Many of them lost their positions. And the main reason is not because the sports community did not want them, but because someone from the political circles pointed out: if you don’t let them go , you will not get any money at all, we will not cooperate with you.”

Cyclist Toms Skujiņš played an almost decisive role in Tikmer’s ouster. He strongly objected to the decision to freeze state funding for those athletes who were not prevented from competing under a neutral flag in the competitions represented by Russian and Belarusian athletes. Latvia’s leading cyclists and tennis player Jeļena Ostapenko came under the hammer of sanctions.

Interview – Aigars Kalvītis, LHF president

“What is our management doing? So, relying on the ministry and seeking peace between the ministry and the sports community, it takes and withdraws scholarships from athletes. Without consulting the executive committee and power structures, which are our internal management structures.”

Although the sums were small, the precedent gained wide international resonance, causing great damage to the athletes’ reputations. Skujiņš’s public reasoning and demand that officials apologize to him earned a lot of public support. The Latvian Olympic Committee, by agreeing to the contract amendments proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science, contradicted its own statutes, the Olympic Charter, and the Sports Law of the Republic of Latvia.

Soon after Skujiņš’s public appearance, the decision was put into rapid reverse, but the opposition of the LOK leadership had already run in, and one of the biggest activists was the Cycling Federation. Apart from that, the core of the opposition was also formed by the Volleyball Federation, the Basketball Union, the Swimming Federation and the Hockey Federation.

When Tikmers had resigned from his post, the agenda also included the question of the future of LOK General Secretary Kārlis Lejnieks. Lejnieks passed the proposed vote of no confidence. Shortly before the vote, SUP and Surfing Federation President Normunds Barinovs accused Lejnieks of influence peddling.

Interview – Normunds Barinovs, president of the Latvian Surfing and SUP Federation

Interview – Kārlis Lejnieks, Secretary General of LOK

In a month and a half, Kārlis Lejnieks has not refuted the accusations of influence peddling. The new LOK president Jānis Bukas is not confused by this.

Interview – Jānis Buks, president of LOK

It is significant that after taking office, Buk publicly apologized to Lejnieks, without specifying exactly what for. Latvian Television knows that the two families have an old friendship, but the pre-election process has significantly strained it.