(ATR) Officials from the five bid cities spent Wednesday poring over a mass of information provided by the IOC about the revamped Olympic bidding process.
Budapest, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Paris and Rome were confirmed as the bidders by IOC president Thomas Bach. The announcement coincided with the publication of all the documents related to the 2024 candidature.
The bids downloaded four major documents from the IOC’s website designed to guide them through every step of the two-year journey to Lima, Peru, where the host city vote takes place in 2017.
There is one dealing with the 2024 bidding process, another on the candidature questionnaire and two on the host city contract – one detailing the principles, the second focusing on operational requirements.
In total, bid officials are wading through 508 pages of bid literature to determine what is expected of them in the new three-phase procedure.
No previous Olympic applicants have ever benefited from such depth of detailed information at the start of a bidding race.
With video conference calls Sept. 23-25 with the IOC, billed as "candidature process kick-off meetings" and individual workshops the week of Nov. 16 in Lausanne, the candidate cities must hit the ground running.
The IOC today set out a detailed timetable for the three phases: Vision, Games Concept and Strategy; Governance, Legal and Venue Funding; and Games Delivery, Experience & Venue Legacy.
Candidate cities are requested to deliver three dossiers to the IOC at each of the stages. After each submission, the IOC Executive Board will confirm the transition of the cities to the next stage.
While the IOC has no plans to reduce the field – there is no shortlisting of candidates – Bach told reporters Wednesday that the bidders "are sitting in the driver’s seat." The IOC will only cut a bid if there is a major breach of the rules of conduct, code of ethics or if minimum requirements during each phase cannot be achieved, he said.
Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi and Jacqueline Barrett, associate director of Olympic Games in charge of bid city relations, will be pivotal in the IOC’s push to keep the bids on track.
After the November workshop, the IOC Executive Board will conduct the official drawing of lots to determine the order of the candidate cities throughout the process at its Dec. 8-10 meeting.
The first bid dossier, covering Vision, Games Concept and Strategy, is due Feb. 17. The IOC expects "a solid concept that meets the long-term development and legacy plans for the city and region, with a strong emphasis on sustainability".
On Wednesday, the IOC made a point of emphasizing three changes to the Host City Contract.
Like the 2022 Olympic contract signed by new hosts Beijing last month, the 2024 edition includes a reference to sexual orientation in the non-discrimination clause.
After some reporters were banned from covering the Baku 2015 European Games, the "freedom of media to report on the Olympic Games" is now integrated in the Host City Contract Principles.
Another key change concerns labor law.
Its inclusion may have resulted from the months-long controversy that has blown up in Qatar over the treatment of migrant workers involved in building FIFA World Cup infrastructure and the Gulf state’s outdated Kafala system. The Qatari government has promises to reform it, but changes have been slow in coming.
Qatar and Baku were considered possible contenders for the 2024 bid race, but are sitting it out perhaps with a view to a tilt for the 2028 Games.
The amendment on labor law compliance calls for the city, NOC and the OCOG to take all necessary measures to ensure that development projects and other Olympic-related projects "comply with local, regional and national legislation and international agreements and protocols" as well as "planning, construction, protection of the environment, health and safety, labor and anti-corruption laws."
The IOC documents specify that media shall have full access to the internet while reporting on the Games, including social networks.
Reported by Mark Bisson
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