Bach: No 2024 Candidates Without Agenda 2020

(ATR) The immediate legacy of Olympic Agenda 2020 is the three cities bidding for the 2024 Olympic Games says IOC President Bach.

Bach delivered his keynote address to the Association of National Olympic Committees today in Doha, Qatar. In a wide-ranging speech Bach touched on the challenges successfully overcome by the IOC ahead of the 2016 Olympics, changes needed to the world’s anti-doping system, and adapting to the current political climate worldwide.

While urging the sporting world to continuously adapt to the modern world, Bach said one success in this area is the implantation of Olympic Agenda 2020. Bach said that if the IOC had not passed the set of future-looking directives in December 2014, there would have been no candidates for the 2024 Olympics.

Budapest, Los Angeles, and Paris are the three candidate cities left vying to host the 2024 Games. Each city will make its first IOC-sanctioned presentation to the world’s 205 National Olympic Committees later today. Two other cities, Hamburg and Rome, had intention to bid for the 2024 Olympics before lack of support from citizens and political figures led to withdrawals.

"All of the candidates who you will see, and the others who were in the race or considering being in the race, can confirm this to you," Bach said. "They told us this. This is not our interpretation. There we can see for 2024, Olympic Agenda 2020 worked perfectly."

Bach said that the world’s current political landscape will influence the direction in which the IOC further adapts post-Olympic Agenda 2020. In bids for the 2022 and 2024 Olympics, the IOC has seen referendums and lack of political guarantees defeat numerous bids. Of the three 2024 Olympic bids, the United States has seen a new right-wing President elected recently, while France could see a new President elected next year. Bid leaders from Los Angeles say that the presidential election will not impact the bid, and ties to the new administration have already begun to be forged.

Bach called these election results the trend of "significant changes in the decision making procedures," of countries that continually engage the IOC. Going forward, the IOC must monitor and address the global trends to ensure the survival of the Olympic Games.

Bidding for the Olympic Games is not the only aspect of the Olympic family touched by political situations worldwide. Bach called for the world’s NOCs, International Federations, and other sporting bodies to constantly review governance structures, which at times have shown to be at odds with country’s laws.

An example the IOC President gave was the ongoing legal situation with Patrick Hickey, who remains in Brazil on charges of illegal sales of Rio 2016 tickets. Bach reiterated the presumption of innocence for Hickey on behalf of the IOC, but called on the world’s NOCs to learn from the affair.

"What was in the past may [have been] just a violation of our internal rules, now in many countries is an infringement on the laws of the country," Bach said. "We have to respect these laws and respect the judicial system of the country… and every one of you has to take them into consideration when acting accordingly."

Written by Aaron Bauer in Doha

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