Minimalism is not to the IOC’s taste. Especially when it comes to Olympic bids. Concerned by the decreasing number of cities applying, the Olympic organization decided to confront the problem. It was time.
Not surprisingly, she draws on her old recipes for this. And announces its decision to create a working group “ responsible for examining the measures to be considered” to reform, or at least modernize, the application process.
Thomas Bach, the President of the IOC, made the announcement himself, Wednesday March 27, on the evening of the second day of the meeting in Lausanne of the Executive Board. “ The world is changing and we want to stay in step with these developments”, summarized the German leader.
The group in question will be composed of five members, one per continent. Chaired by the Australian John Coates, already in charge of the New Standard and the 2024/2028 double voting file, it also includes the Chinese Lingwei Li, the Burundian Lydia Nsekera, the Slovak Danka Bartekova and the Argentinian Gerardo Werthein.
Thomas Bach has already asked these five members not to hang around on the way. The IOC President is awaiting their first proposals in time for the next Executive Board meeting, on May 22, 2019. The selected ideas will then be discussed, for possible approval, at the IOC session, scheduled for June 24-26, 2019. in Lausanne.
Thomas Bach also expects from this working group “ creative and effective solutions ». He explained : " We sign them a sort of blank check so that they can organize themselves as they wish."
The roadmap is clear: the IOC wants to put in place a more flexible, more targeted and more dialogue-oriented application process. Thomas Bach summed it up with this formula: “ The IOC could approach a city or region and say, “Look, isn’t now the right time for you? »
There is no question, however, of completely reversing the course of things. Thomas Bach warned: the IOC will not follow the example of certain international federations, the IAAF in the lead, by awarding the Games to a city without going through the stage of a vote by its members.
« The Olympic Games are different, they are too big and too important for us to have an arrangement with a city without a public discussion, and without anyone knowing, except perhaps the executive committee. said Thomas Bach.
