Before the Vote
On July 6, 2005 the IOC membership at the 117th Session in Singapore will vote for the Host City of the 2012 Olympic Games.
On July 15, 2003, National Olympic Committees interested in bidding for the 2012 Games were to submit their candidate city names to the IOC. Nine cities were nominated, namely Havana Cuba, Istanbul Turkey, Leipzig Germany, London UK, Madrid Spain, Moscow Russia, New York USA, Paris France and Rio de Janeiro Brazil. These cities were required to respond to a questionnaire to be submitted by January 15, 2004 and the results would be evaluated by the IOC and used to create a short-list.
The selected short-list of candidates that would be included in the vote to host the Games was London, Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris. Although the IOC didn’t rank the Cities at this time, they did disclose scoring that put Paris in front followed closely by Madrid and London.
On November 15, 2004 the candidate cities submitted their three-volume bid books to the IOC. They were all accepted and approved by the IOC and were released to the public shortly thereafter.
The IOC bid evaluation commission conducted their site tours commencing with Madrid from February 3-6, 2005 followed by London from February 16 to 19, then New York from February 21 to 24, Paris from March 9 to 12 and concluding with Moscow from March 14 to 17.
At the important SportAccord conference in Berlin in April all five bids outlined their plans to IOC members. However London introduced a new package of incentives that the bid committee later withdrew when IOC President Jacques Rogge expressed that he feared a “bidding war” if this kind of activity continued.
On June 6, 2005, the IOC evaluation commission issued its final technical report based on the bid books and site visits. While the commission indicates that they do not rank the bids it is clear that Paris and London have the most glowing reports followed by New York and Madrid. The evaluation appears to have dismissed Moscow as a contender in the race.
Later on June 6, State approval for New York’s Olympic Stadium plan was rejected leaving the city’s bid in chaos. A day later New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg seemed to give up the bid when he told America that New York had let them down. However a week later the Mayor and his bid team announced a revised plan that moved the Olympic Stadium from West Manhattan to Queens – a stadium that would be built by baseball’s New York Mets. This plan gave New York’s bid a second life.
New York scrambled to gain approval of the related international sports federations and the IOC by providing the needed details and paperwork. The athletics and football federation gave their blessings – but without an updated technical evaluation report, the competing cities wonder how the IOC members can make informed decisions at the last minute.
The Vote
On July 6, 2005 at the 117th Session of the IOC in Singapore, the five cities will make final 1 hour presentations to the IOC members at the Raffles City Convention Centre (starting from 8:00am local Singapore time, GMT +8) in the following drawn order: Paris, New York, Moscow, London and Madrid. A half-hour press briefing will follow each presentation.
About 100 IOC members will be eligible to vote in the first round of balloting. The current IOC president, members from potential host countries on the ballot (France has 4 members and 3 attending, United States has 3, Russia has 3, UK has 3 and Spain has 2) and absentee members are not eligible to vote (there are 116 total members available to vote – at least 1 has already confirmed his absence).
The vote is by electronic secret ballot if the Chairman (the President, or, in his absence, the attending Vice-President senior) decides or upon the request of at least a quarter of the members present, and each eligible IOC member votes for one city. If after the first round no city has a majority of the votes (50% plus 1), the city with the fewest votes will be eliminated and further rounds will be held until one city receives a majority. If an IOC member was not eligible to vote because their country was on the ballot and their country gets eliminated, they become eligible to vote in any future rounds. In case of a tie between two cities with the least amount of votes in a round when further rounds are required, a special ballot will be held to decide which city to eliminate. In case of a tie between two cities on the final ballot, the Chairperson of the Session will cast the deciding vote.
At 5:45pm Singapore time, the round-by-round voting will commence followed at 7:30pm by an announcement ceremony where the IOC president will announce the host of the 2012 Olympic Games. The actual winner announcement will happen at precisely 7:42pm. At 8:30pm Singapore time there will be a press conference held by the 2012 host city.
Schedule For July 6 – Local Singapore Time (GMT +8)
08:30 – 09:00 Opening of the 117th IOC Session – Followed by the presentations of the 2012 Candidate Cities
09:00 – 10:00 Presentation by Paris
10:15 – 10:45 Press briefing by Paris
10:30 – 11:30 Presentation by New York
11:45 – 12:15 Press briefing by New York
12:00 – 13:00 Presentation by Moscow
13:15 – 13:45 Press briefing by Moscow
14:30 – 15:30 Presentation by London
15:45 – 16:15 Press briefing by London
16:00 – 17:00 Presentation by Madrid
17:15 – 17:45 Press briefing by Madrid
17:15 – 17:45 Report by the Evaluation Commission
17:45 – 18:30 Vote to elect the 2012 Host City
19:30 – 20:00 Announcement Ceremony of the Host City of the Games of the XXX Olympiad in 2012
20:30 – 21:00 Signature of the Host City Contract followed by joint IOC/Host City press conference
