If there's one thing athletes are programmed to do it's fight. They bring focus to hot days and persistence to hard days and channel their resolve into something meaningful. Nothing is given, everything is earned, and that's exactly the attitude which athletes need if they want a vote and a say in their federations.

Officials like power about as much as athletes like podiums and like everything else in sport this is a turf war. In the old days they'd say that athletes belonged on the field and officials in the boardroom, but some ideas need to be tossed in the bin. Even the cautious International Olympic Committee (IOC) believes the thinking-talking athlete is a swell idea.