Huge decisions loom this week as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meets in Buenos Aires, Argentina for their 125th session, and the future of sport itself will come out altered.
On Saturday, September 7th, we will see each of the three finalists to host the 2020 Olympics give their final 45-minute presentations followed by a press conference. Those will run from 9 AM until just about 1:30 PM, at which point the IOC Evaluation Commission will break for lunch.
Then, the IOC 2020 Evaluation Commission will give their report from 3:00 – 3:30 PM, with a test vote to be run at 3:30 PM.
From 3:45-4PM, the official vote for the host city of the XXXII Olympiad in 2020 will be held, with the announcement ceremony set to run from 5:00-5:30 PM. The selected host city will sign their contract in a ceremony at 6:30, which will be followed by a joint press conference.
There haven’t been a ton of late-breaking developments in the case. Tokyo announced that the support of its citizens had risen to an all-time high, with 92% supporting the games in a late poll. Though largely propaganda, this could, ultimately, play a significant roles as reports out of the 2016 host city, Rio de Janiero, are that the Brazilian citizens are quickly waning in their support of the next Games.
Tokyo will compete against Istanbul and Madrid for the bid. See our report after the IOC released their evaluations here.
Our latest A3 poll of the week surrounds who our readers think should win, vote on the SwimSwam home page.
The fun doesn’t stop there, however. The 125th IOC session runs Sunday morning, September 8th, from 9AM – 1AM, where several broad conversations will be had (including undoubtedly the continued threats of Olympic athletes to unionize in revolt over incredibly restrictive Olympic sponsorship rules).
Also during that time, the finalists to be added as a new sport for the 2020 Olympics. Wrestling, which created so much ire when it was cut, could be added back in, but it will have to challenge another recently-dropped sport (baseball/softball) as well as squash, an incredibly popular sport worldwide, but never an Olympic sport.
That should be an interesting vote: baseball’s international organization and viability has greatly increased since its last attempt, with the success of the World Baseball Classic, though it’s still unlikely that the sport’s top stars will play in the Olympics. Squash has 19 different countries represented in the world’s top 50, showing its international nature, with heavy concentrations in Egypt and England.
Wrestling has large-spread public sentiment behind it, as it’s viewed as one of the true Olympic sports that has existed since the beginning and is attended by the best in the world every time.
Then, a vote will be done on the 25 core sports, plus another on the possible new sport. The IOC session will continue that evening, with a press briefing at 6:30 (likely to announce the decision, if it isn’t leaked earlier).
IOC meetings continue on Monday, with another press briefing, and then things close on Tuesday with the election of a new IOC president on Tuesday at 11AM.
The decision will be announced at 12:30 as to who will replace Belgian Jacques Rogge after 12 years on the job. There are 6 candidates to take the job, the most we’ve ever seen run:
- IOC vice president Bach of Germany
- IOC vice president Ng Ser Miang of Singapore
- IOC finance commission chairman Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico
- IOC executive board member Sergei Bubka of Ukraine
- IOC executive board member C.K. Wu of Taiwan
- Former IOC executive board member Denis Oswald from Switzerland
To see the full schedule from this weekend’s meeting, click here.
Jacques Rogge is Belgian, not French.
I am hoping Istanbul will win. That would be amazing.
If not, Tokyo will do it for me.
No to Madrid.
Are these times local Buenos Aires time?
boknows34 – correct. That’s an hour ahead of U.S. East Coast time.