IOC Opens for Business in Buenos Aires

(ATR) The IOC launches two weeks of activities in Argentina beginning with a meeting Wednesday of the ruling Executive Board.

The two day meeting will be a prelude to the Olympism in Action Forum Oct. 5-6, followed by the IOC Session Oct. 8-9 and the third edition of the Youth Olympic Games which run until Oct. 18.

The EB agenda Wednesday morning includes a report on the international federations in the summer Games. With the relationship fraying with Olympic boxing federation AIBA, the 15 members of the board are expected to talk about what’s next.

Wednesday is also the day for the federation to release the list of nominees for president and other positions up for election next month at the AIBA Congress in Moscow. The IOC Ethics and Compliance officer has advised AIBA that Interim President Gafur Rakhimov is not suitable to take the post because his name appears on a U.S. Treasury Department list of individuals associated with organized crime in Russia.

The EB took a number of steps against the federation last December and again this February. It remains to be seen what the IOC will do if Rakhimov is the only candidate for president.

The two day meeting will include reports from all upcoming Olympic host cities as well as the next steps toward selecting a 2026 winter host. Bids from Sweden, Italy, Turkey and Canada are in the mix.

IOC President Thomas Bach will give his first press conference Thursday when the EB closes.

Friday and Saturday the IOC stages its first Olympism in Action Forum. More than 1600 delegates are expected at the CECBA Convention Center. The program will cover the range of issues in Bach’s Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms.

The IOC Session will open on Oct. 8 with members hearing reports from upcoming host cities on day one. The major item of business for day two is the election of nine new IOC members.

The IOC will also announce a change in plans for the vote on the 2026 Winter Games. Originally planned for the 2019 IOC Session in Milan next September, the candidacy of Milan for 2026 complicates things. The Olympic Charter prohibits the vote from taking place at a session in the same country as one of the bidders, much less the actual city doing the bidding.

IOC members are expected to be told that the vote will happen in July when they head to Lausanne for the customary technical briefing from the bid cities that is held a month or so before the vote.

The surroundings of the IOC Session will be familiar to members on board in 2013. That’s when the IOC last met in Buenos Aires, a session which selected Tokyo for the 2020 Games. The Hilton, site of the 2013 meetings, will be the place to gather in 2018.

Reported by Ed Hula.