IOC 2024 Olympic Chief Won't Criticize LA and Paris Bids

(ATR) Patrick Baumann says the aim of the IOC evaluation commission visiting Los Angeles and Paris next month is "not to be critical".

The IOC’s shake-up of the bidding process in Agenda 2020 reforms appeared to have demanded a harder edge when summing up the strengths and weaknesses of bid cities.

But Baumann, who leads the IOC inspectors to Los Angeles May 10-12 and Paris May 14-16, believes it is not the job of his commission to be critical at the conclusion of each trip and in the report that follows, which will help IOC members determine where to cast their votes.

"As an evaluation commission we are faced with almost to some extent an easy job," he told Around the Rings in an exclusive interview at the SportAccord Convention in Aarhus. He said both Los Angeles and Paris were both capable of hosting the Olympics.

"We will certainly be asking questions and looking at in detail what the plans are. It is not to be critical. It is to confirm that they understood both very well what they put in the bid files," he said.

"There is sometimes a tendency to be more optimistic in commitments.

"We want to make sure that they don’t over-promise things that might then be difficult. Because we don’t want them to be in trouble and we don’t want the Olympic Movement to be somehow responsible for the cities that might be in trouble," he added.

"It is about confirming the opportunities. It’s about seeing if there are challenges here or there.

"It’s about helping the cities to make sure whatever their plans are as a city in terms of development for the next 10 or 20 years that the Games enter into those plans very naturally and helps accelerate those changes."

Baumann dismissed the suggestion that the IOC’s push to award the 2024 and 2028 Games to LA and Paris this year was a distraction to his job as evaluation commission chair.

An IOC working group composed of the four vice presidents is tasked with deciding whether to recommend sharing the two Olympics between the cities at the IOC Session in September. The IOC executive board is likely to make a decision in July which will be put to a vote at the IOC Session meeting in Lausanne.

The move is part of plans to lock in two cities with arguably the best bid plans in Olympic history and avoid a repeat of the withdrawals from the 2022 and 2024 races that has marred the IOC’s much-vaunted reforms of its bidding procedures.

"I don’t think it is a matter of uncertainty. The reality is whichever way it goes we will have fantastic Games," Baumann said.

"As an evaluation commission president I’m focused on 2024."

He said the IOC’s taskforce to study a dual Olympic award must ensure the "opportunities outweigh the challenges of making a new concept".

Whatever the outcome of the IOC panel, Baumann said: "For the Olympic Movement to have two cities like this that have the capabilities to host the Games on several occasions and certainly can host it regularly with the facilities that they have is a great privilege for the world of sport.

"It is a demonstration that the Olympics do have a lot of value and not just as an event itself but a value as what it brings as sport, what the rings mean and what they mean for a city."

Listen to Baumann describe his work as evaluation commission chairman and talk more about the future of SportAccord in the ATRadio below:

Reported by Mark Bissonin Aarhus, Denmark

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