Following is a summary of the 2010 race and the voting procedures for decision day, July 2, 2003.
Before the Vote
On July 2, 2003 the IOC membership at the 115th Session in Prague will vote for the Host City of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
On February 4, 2002, cities interested in bidding for the 2008 Games were to submit their intentions to the IOC. Eight cities did just that, namely Andorra la Vella Andorra, Berne Switzerland, Harbin China, Jaca Spain, PyeongChang South Korea, Salzburg Austria, Sarajevo Bosnia-Herzegovina and Vancouver Canada. These cities were required to respond to a questionnaire to be submitted by May 31, 2002 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 Berne, PyeongChang, Salzburg and Vancouver. Although the IOC didn’t rank the Cities at this time, they did disclose scoring and that put Salzburg in front followed closely by Vancouver.
In September of 2002, the City of Berne held a referendum on Games financing and the plan was rejected almost 4 to 1; Berne withdrew from the race.
In February 2003, Vancouver held a referendum over the desire to host the Games and 64% voted in favor. In February and March of 2003, a special evaluation committee was sent to visit each of the remaining three Cities so that they could report their findings to the full group of voting IOC members.
On May 2, 2003, the evaluation report was made public and was very favourable to Vancouver and Salzburg – PyeongChang had a few minor concerns. The three candidates filed responses to the IOC and both Vancouver and Salzburg made changes to the plans to answer IOC concerns.
In June, all three candidates were selected to be on the final ballot on July 2, 2003.
The Vote
On July 2, 2003 at the 115th Session of the IOC in Prague, Czech Republic, the three cities will make final 45 minute presentations to the IOC members (from 8:45am to 3:45pm local Prague time) in the following drawn order: Vancouver, Salzburg and PyeongChang. A lunch break will follow Salzburg’s presentation.
As many as 119 IOC members will be eligible to vote in the first round of balloting. The current IOC president, members from potential host countries (Canada has three, South Korea has three and Austria has 1) on the ballot and absentee members are not eligible to vote (there are 126 total members available to vote).
The vote is by 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 4:30pm Prague time, the vote will commence followed at 5:30pm by a press conference and announcement ceremony where the IOC president will announce the host of the 2010 Olympic Games. The actual winner announcement will happen at precisely 5:41pm. At 6:30pm Prague time there will be a press conference held by the 2010 host city.
