A combo picture (Clockwise from left top) shows Puerto Rican Richard Carrion, Ukrainian pole vault legend Sergey Bubka, German lawyer’s Thomas Bach, Swiss former Olympic rower Denis Oswald, Taiwan’s architect Ching-Kuo Wu and Singapore’s diplomat Ser Miang Ng. (AFP)
The International Olympic Committee descends on Buenos Aires for a week to shape its future by electing a new president, the host city of the 2020 Games and a new sport.
Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo are the contenders when the IOC elects the 2020 host in a secret ballot on Saturday. The next day wrestling hopes to be reinstated over squash and a joint baseball-softball bid, and the successor to Jacques Rogge as IOC boss is elected on Tuesday next week, with German Thomas Bach rated favourite.
The three big decisions make the IOC Session September 7-10 the most important and defining in decades. It is preceded by meetings of the decision-making executive board Wednesday and Thursday.
While United States President Barack Obama will not be present this time around - he pitched in vain for Chicago when the IOC in 2009 elected Rio to host the 2016 Games - the Argentinian capital will not be short of top politicians, royalty, celebrities and sports stars. The final presentations of bid cities on the day of the vote have long become national affairs, with leading politicians and royals pleading their case before the 104-strong IOC membership.
Prime ministers Shinzo Abe of Japan, Mariano Rajoy of Spain and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey will be present in Buenos Aires, where plenty of back-door lobbying is expected in a race which has no clear favourite and the city with the least shortcomings rather than outstanding attractions could be victorious.
Istanbul, bringing together Europa and Asia through its unique location, was long considered the favourite in its fifth bid, but anti-government protests and a series of doping cases have tainted the image of the Turkish metropolis.
Given the somewhat risky choices of Sochi and Rio, the IOC may feel it is time for safe sailing rather than navigating more uncharted waters.Madrid aims to come third time lucky after missing out for 2012 and 2016, boasting state-of-the-art transportation and 80 per cent of the venues in place. As a result, the Spanish budget is by far the lowest with 1.9 billion dollars, which could go down well with Olympians against the backdrop of the global economic crisis. Spain has been hit hard as well and imposed strict austerity measures, but says that the Olympic Games will speed up the projected recovery instead of being an additional burden. Crown Prince Felipe shone at presentations two months ago at the IOC headquarters in Switzerland, and the 1992 Olympic sailor will also be adressing the Olympians Saturday along with NBA star Pau Gasol and others.
“We have a very good team. It is an important line-up that will perform brilliantly” bid chief Alejandro Blanco said, expecting “a few votes are going to be decided there and then” by the presentation. Tokyo, which hosted the 1964 Olympics and is bidding the second straight time, has a similar approach as the Games are to help the nation‘s recovery from the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
However, the latest leak of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has raised safety concerns around a bid which says “Tokyo 2020 is the safe pair of hands that can be trusted to deliver superb Games in these uncertain times.” The winning city will be preparing and delivering Games during the eight-year tenure of a new IOC president for which a record six men are applying to take over from the Belgian surgeon Rogge. The IOC vice president Bach, vice president Ng Ser Miang of Singapore and finance commission chairman Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico are seen as the top contenders, while executive board members Sergei Bubka of Ukraine, CK Wu of Taiwan; and IOC member Denis Oswald of Switzerland are outsiders. “The IOC president is under constant pressure, politically and financially. He must not only have substance but must have the ability to represent our view to the whole world,” said Israel’s IOC member Alex Gilady.
Bach won Olympic fencing gold in 1976 and has been on the IOC since 1991. He soon emerged as an influential member of the decision-making executive board, negotiates European TV rights, chairs the IOC legal commission and IOC doping probes.
Bach is backed by Kuwait‘s Sheikh Ahmad al-Sabah, an influential IOC member who presides over the Association of National Olympic Committees. But al-Sabah is under investigation by the IOC ethics committee for publicly backing Bach which violates IOC rules.
Rogge, who took the job in 2001 and was re-elected for a final four-year term in 2009, was the 7th European IOC leader from eight presidents the organisation has seen, with American Avery Brundage (1952-1972) the only exception. The 2020 host city and the president are elected in the same way, with the candidate with the least votes eliminated in each round, or a candidate getting an outright majority. That is what wrestling is hoping for after being surprisingly dropped from the 2020 programme by the executive board earlier but given a second chance to be reinstated when one sport is chosen on Sunday.
Wrestling‘s fate led to a global outcry and an unlikely American-Iranian-Russian alliance as the three big countries lobbied for the sport, while the world governing body underwent a leadership change and reformed itself.