At the end of a four day seminar in Lausanne Switzerland attended by representatives of the nine cities bidding for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and sponsored by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), it was announced that 2012 bid city representatives have been invited to visit Athens November 21 and 22 to observe preparations for the Athens 2004 Summer Olympic Games.
The next step in the process will have the nine bid cities complete a questionnaire by January 15, 2004 and based on the answers to the questionnaire the IOC may compile a shortlist of the bid cities on May 18.
Carlos Robert Osório, the director of International Relations for Brazil’s Olympic Committee, said that everything depends on the quality of the answers of the questionnaires. He added that the IOC may or may not cut some cities. Rio de Janeiro is one of the nine cities bidding for the 2012 Games.
Carlos Arthur Nuzman, head of Brazil’s Olympic committee, and leader of Brazil’s delegation to Lausanne, said the seminar was important to the planning of the 2012 bids. He said it was at a very high level and provided a golden opportunity for everyone involved in the bid process to learn about the complexity of organizing an Olympic Games.
On Friday representatives of the bid cities had an opportunity to meet individually with IOC representatives to discuss specific subjects pertinent to their bids.
Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC, said that because of the quality of the respective bids, this could be one of the hardest fought competitions in the history of the Olympic Games.
