IOC: President Thomas Bach has opened the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur by heaping praise on bid cities for reducing their costs and embracing the new Olympic Agenda 2020.
He said the two cities in contention to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Almaty and Beijing, had cut their infrastructure budgets by $1.5 billion US and $1.85 billion US respectively.
Agenda 2020 which was adopted by the IOC seven months ago is aimed at reducing the costs of bidding and hosting the Games.
“All future host cities will benefit from these reforms” he said. “The Organising Committee for Tokyo 2020 has embraced this opportunity in a remarkable way”.
“The Tokyo Organising Committee working with the IOC Coordination Commission, chaired by John Coates, has made savings of $1.7 billion US with hundreds of millions more in the pipeline without jeopardising the atmosphere of the Games”.
Such a move will assist the mayors of south-east Queensland who are keen to launch a bid to host the 2028 Olympic Games.
They are currently conducting a feasibility study on the project. The Australian Olympic Committee has given in-principal support to their bid and has applauded their decision to look at the costs involved in hosting the Games.
President Bach said Agenda 2020 was also responsible for the large number of cities bidding for the right to host the Games in 2024. Bids have come from Hamburg, Rome, Budapest, Paris and possibly Toronto as well as another American city to replace Boston.
In the past 15 months the IOC has signed 18 contracts worth a total of $14 billion US or $19 billion Australian.
“Our recent success in Marketing and TV Rights negotiations with many long-term contracts demonstrate that also our partners have such great confidence in the IOC and the direction we are taking”.
He believes the introduction of an Olympic television channel will help spread the Olympic values to the world.
“The Olympic channel is our game changer to stay ahead of the curve. It goes well beyond a TV channel- it is a digital platform that will leverage all technology trends. It will give Olympic fans to view, engage with, and share the magic of Olympic sport”.
MIKE TANCRED - in Kuala Lumpur
olympics.com.au
