Buenos Aires, 5th September a memorable re-entry from the holidays awaits the Olympic Movement with three key decisions to be taken at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the IOC Members will vote the host city for the 2020 Olympic Games, decide the 2020 Olympic programme, and elect a new IOC President.

IOC Member Patrick Hickey, the President of the EOC and Member of the IOC Executive Board in his capacity as Senior Vice President of ANOC, the worldwide association of NOCs, reached Buenos Aires from Rio, where he was for the Judo World Championships and a Rio 2016 Coordination Commission visit. He was joined by EOC Vice-President Alexander Kozlowsky, Secretary Generall Raffaele Pagnozzi and Treasurer Kikis Lazarides, who will be with the President at an informal ANOC Executive Council meeting that ANOC President Al Sabah has called early on 6th September, before the Session opens.

The IOC meetings began on 4th September with the last EB meeting to be chaired by President Jacques Rogge, who will be stepping down as the Olympic Movement’s leader after 12 years, whilst the Opening Ceremony for the Session will take place on the evening of 6th September at the celebrated Buenos Aires opera house, the Teatro Colon. Then the action will start on 7th September, when the Session is called upon to vote the 2020 host city from the candidates still in the running: Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid, whilst on the 8th, the Session will discuss the 2020 Olympic programme. Lastly, on the 10th it will elect a new IOC President, the ninth in the history of the Olympic Movement, together with a new Vice President, a new EB Member and nine IOC Members and Honorary Members. The six candidates competing for the top job are Thomas Bach, Sergey Bubka, Richard Carrión, Ser Miang Ng, Denis Oswald and Ching-Kuo Wu.
The Session will be streamed live on www.olympic.org.