Big moment for Rio and Chicago
Olympic officials in suits meeting behind closed doors can never generate the sort of excitement as a single tweak of a Usain Bolt muscle, but keep an eye on the meetings beginning on Monday in Lausanne.
While they will not produce any binding decisions they could tell us a lot about the likely shape of the movement over the next decade, including the chances of a first British member of the IOC executive board since the 1950s.
The most crucial meeting is the one on Wednesday when the four cities bidding for the 2016 Games - Rio, Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid - make closed door presentations to IOC members at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.
Many IOC members have always resented the ban on visiting bidding cities imposed back in 1999, following the corruption scandal that nearly brought the movement to its knees.
Their complaint is that the present system does not give them a chance to make a proper study of a city's merits.
They get a hefty evaluation report, which many confess they do not properly read, followed by a presentation by the cities just before the vote. There have been all sorts of suggestions for reviving visits including escorted visits with IOC minders to prevent any possible chance of bribery.
The meeting in Lausanne is a compromise suggested by President Jacques Rogge, providing members a chance to hear from the bidding cities, have more time to reflect on their decision, but all of it above board with no possible chance of any skulduggery.
The members will only decide on their choice of city when they meet in a formal session in Copenhagen in October.
By then members will have the evaluation reports. Prepared by an IOC committee led by Nawal El Moutawakel, the reports were recently finalised. They have not yet been released but I understand that while all four cities get high marks, Rio may have most cause for satisfaction.
Rio has a strong emotional case - the Games have never been to Latin America. But the worry is security and I understand the report is believed to be reassuring on this.
America has not had the Games since Atlanta in 1996 and, with Chicago being Barrack Obama's home city, the conventional wisdom has been that Obama has only to appear in Copenhagen in October, with or without Michelle, and it is game over.
The Obama factor can never be underestimated but Chicago has two problems. Like all US Olympics, Chicago will be privately funded at a time when governments all over the world are funding almost everything else.
There is also still a tide of anti-Americanism in the IOC. In 2005 when New York bid against London, this tide was fuelled by the Iraq war, now it is the top slicing of television and commercial income the US Olympic Committee gets before any money is distributed to the rest of the Olympic world. This has led to angry debates, many meetings, but no resolution.
While Madrid and Tokyo have good bids, their problem is their location rather than what they say they will do. Madrid would mean three successive Games in Europe following on from 2012 in London and 2014 in Sochi. Tokyo would mean a return to East Asia for the summer Games only eight years after Beijing.
The feeling at the moment is 2016 is going west, Rio or Chicago.
Before the cities make their presentations, the IOC Executive Board will hear the case by seven sports which want to be part of the 2016 Games - softball, baseball, golf, rugby sevens, karate, squash and roller skating.
The Executive will not come to a decision until a further meeting in August - then they will choose the two sports for the IOC session in Copenhagen to approve.
IOC chiefs would like to see major sports in the Olympics. Golf, rugby sevens and baseball meet that criterion but baseball's problem is getting major league players to take part in the Games.
The IOC has been worried for sometime that the Games no longer have the same appeal for the young and it is felt that sports like golf and rugby sevens would attract this audience.
With 90 of the 107 members likely to be in Lausanne, it gives Britain's Sir Craig Reedie a chance to lobby his colleagues as he seeks to get on the executive board. Olympic convention demands that a host city should have a representative on the executive.
Reedie just failed to get elected in Beijing but he is well liked and Lausanne should prove the start of a successful campaign.
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No doubt the first blog that you'll make over the next few days, so I hope this "setting the scene" blog leads to some more substantive commentary later in the week over what's unfolding.
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Latin America's turn, surely. The Games have been to America and Europe many times. And Rio is a terrific backdrop.
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It depends on who is daft enough to want the Olympics.
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The list of candidate sports to add is absurd. Fair play, I'm very biased as a rugby fan, but surely no one could seriously defend roller skating over sevens. It was good to see IOC members at the recent sevens world cup, where they'd have seen a sport played by countries from all over the world to the highest Olympic ideals, with small developing world nations making a major impact. Kenya in particular have been a revelation this season. Added advantages of sevens are that it would make use of the main stadium before the athletics starts, and the international rugby board have agreed to replace the world cup with the olympics.
Of the other sports, baseball and softball - the same sport, surely? - are too parochial. They'd be better off with twenty-twenty cricket, at least the British empire, and hence the spread of cricket, extended over enough countries to allow there to be meaningful quarter finals; US influence only spread baseball as a major sport in Batista era Cuba and post WWII Japan.Apart from the US, Canada, Cuba and Japan who else will even have a team?
Golf has too much money and has the Majors for players to vie for, as with tennis Olympic golf would be a second rate affair in the minds of the players and the public.
Karate, well there are a range of other martial arts, not sure if that's a reason to include karate or to exclude it! They all look much the same to me to be honest, I don't really feel we need another one.
Squash I've got more time for, better that than badminton. My favourites therefore would be rugby sevens and squash. To whom do I lobby?! Really though they want to look again at the complete list, and look for sports with a high level of interest, a decent geographical spread, and most importantly real competitiveness. Does anyone ever expect the US to lose at basketball?
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#4
Who else will even have a baseball team? I think Sth Korea might. After all they are the defending Olympic champions. Dominican Rep, Venezuela and Puerto Rico also have incredibly strong teams. The problem fot the sport like Mihir Bose said is that they don't send their best players to the Olympics as the MLB season runs from April to October and therefore always clashes with the Summer Games. Football and basketball don't have that problem.
And basketball is far more competitive than some Olympic sports like table tennis where China totally dominate. Spain are still the world champions and pushed the USA very hard in Beijing. You also forget that Argentina won in 2004.
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Japan would also have a baseball team - it's pretty big over there....but apart from that, I can't imagine that the standard of the tournament would be very good at all.
Also, if the US roped in several Major League Baseball stars, the rest of the world may as well not turn up surely?
Why not play Olympic rounders instead?...!
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"Their complaint is that the present system does not give them a chance to make a proper study of a city's merits.
They get a hefty evaluation report, which many confess they do not properly read..."
Whose fault is that? It seems not so much that the present system doesn't give them a chance, more that it requires them to actually make some effort. So reading the reports is too much trouble, but physically travelling to various cities around the world isn't. Hmm.
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Who would be mad enough to have the Olympics? Great spectacle and all that, but the equivalent of setting fire to £50 notes.
And I read this morning about Montgomerie pleasding the case for golf to be included in the 2016 event. What a joke that is. It's bad enough that tennis is in the Olympics, but to add golf would be even worse! http://www.loserscomesecond.com/
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The 2016 Olympic games should really go to Rio De Janeiro as South America have never staged the Olympics in all its history.
By this time hopefully Brazil would have staged a sucessful 2014 FIFA World cup and would had experince on Security and infrasture concerns
Surely a global event and giving the fact the Olympic rings represent the 5 continents of the world, its time for this part of the world to get the nod.
USA have the power of Barrack Obama and the financial/Marketing clout, but I hope the IOC members vote on geographical terms and let it be RIO 2016.
Madrid has no chance after London 2012 being in Europe and Tokyo is to close to Beijing 2008 being in Asia.
In order for future cities to bid for the Olympics in terms of organisation and cost effectiveness without a doubt Squash and Karate should be included in the 2012 games.
Baseball and Softball are not global enough and did not attract a high audience in Europe and other parts of the world.
Rugby and Golf have a high enough profile and many club/world championships/cups without the need of an Olympic influence.
2012 LONDON
2016 RIO
MAYBE 2020 CAPE TOWN OR DURBAN
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Golf! Please no. Like Tennis it just would not work. Would Tiger Woods rather win the US Masters or an Olympic medal? My guess would be the US Masters. Tennis doesn't work because you get the impression the players are there to be part of something or because they feel they have to be rather than a hunger to win. Andy Murray proved that last year.
Not being a cynic but I think golf is being touted so the US can wheel out a load of big name golfers like Woods to support the Chicago bid for 2016.
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First, a correction: Latin America HAS hosted the Olympics. Mexico City did so in 1968. As Mexico is in North America, South America is still due for the Games.
Of note: Rio successfully hosted the Pan American Games in 2007. While smaller in scope than the Summer Olympics, it still had an estimated 5,634 athletes from 42 countries participating in 38 sports in venues throughout the city. That event is affiliated with the International Olympics Committee indicating that there were IOC-vetted security requirements in place for the Pan Am Games. Perhaps it is not such a leap to believe Rio will be safe enough for the Summer Games.
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