Lausanne, June 17th the four candidate cities for the 31st Olympiad – Chicago (USA), Tokyo (JAP), Rio de Janeiro (BRA) and Madrid (ESP) were all at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne (SUI) to give a technical briefing to the 93 members of the International Olympic Committee who were present for the event. The presentations prompted a series of questions, with which the IOC Members quizzed the delegations on the details of their project. This was also an opportunity for the media to meet the candidate cities.
The Lausanne meeting is the culmination to the IOC Evaluation Commissions visits to the candidate cities, chaired by IOC Member Ms. Nawal El Moutawakel (MAR).
The Commission is currently completing its report, which will have to be distributed to IOC Members at least one month before the election of the host city, due to take place in Copenhagen (DEN) next 2nd October.
Patrick Hickey, the President of the association that groups the European NOCs, and many other IOC Members from the old continent were present at the Lausanne briefing.
Since the Salt Lake City bribes-for-votes scandal in 1999, IOC delegates have been barred from visiting candidate cities. This week’s programme was arranged to give the bidders direct contact with those who will choose the host city for the 2016 Games.