117th IOC Session
From Freepedia
The 117th International Olympic Committee Session was held for the first time in Singapore from 2 July to 9 July 2005. The meeting was especially significant as two important decisions were made through voting during the session, namely the selection of the hosting city for the 2012 Summer Olympics, and a review of the 28 sports currently represented in the summer games.
The session was held at the Raffles City Convention Centre, which is on level 4 of the Raffles City complex. The opening ceremony on 5 July 2005 was held at the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay.
Contents |
Emblem
Proceedings
Image:117th IOC Bannar.jpg Image:117th IOC car.jpg
1 July 2005
An exhibition was launched at the podium of the Raffles City Shopping Complex, and will go on till 10 July.
2 July 2005
The IOC Session commences.
3 July 2005
The session proper commenced with a meeting of the IOC's Executive Board.
4 July 2005
The Executive Board meetings resume, with report updates on the progress of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver by their respective representatives. Beijing has decided to hold the equestrian events in Hong Kong, as the territory is a disease free zone.
5 July 2005
The opening ceremony was held at the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay and the guest of honour was the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong and the latter officially opened the session. A special type of hybrid orchid has been bred to commemorate the IOC Session in Singapore. The flower is named Vanda IOC. After that, it held a cultural performance of dance and songs - the theme was "One Voice, One Rhythm, One World".
6 July 2005
See: 2012 Summer Olympic bids Each of the five bid cities had 45 minutes to make a final presentation to the IOC members, after which voting commenced and the final results were annoucenced at 1930 Singapore time. London emerged as the bid winner. Local sailor Griselda Khng hands an envelope to IOC president Jacques Rogge consisting the result of the host city.
7 July 2005
The final evaluation report of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens was presented. The Athens Games was finally closed.
8 July 2005
The existing 28 sports in the Summer Olympics programme came under scrutiny, three years after a similar attempt failed to gain support from IOC members during the 114th IOC Session in Mexico City. Prior to the votes, baseball, softball, modern pentathlon, taekwondo and fencing were considered the most likely to be dropped. Five other sports were vying to get in, including golf, roller sports, squash, rugby sevens and karate. Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, has been supportive of this move, while the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) has been opposing it.
In the morning of the session in which IOC members voted for sports to be removed (a 51% of votes for each sport is needed for it to remain in the games), baseball and softball were booted out, while modern pentathlon managed a surprise survival in the programme. Some nations express dismay with the result, in particular the United States where both sports originated from, and Japan, where both have a strong following.
In the afternoon, however, a secret vote by IOC members gave squash and karate the minimum 51% of votes, but no sport was added to the programme as the votes fail to garner a two-thirds majority to amend the Olympic Charter and include the new sports. With this result, the Summer Olympics programme will have 26 sports from the 2012 Summer Olympics onwards.
That night at the Oriental Hotel, when SNOC president and defence minister, Teo Chee Hean threw a banquet, Rogge gave Singapore full marks for the session organisation, a perfect 6. As Mr Teo told Rogge wheether there was any shortcomings that meet the IOC expectations, and accept his apologies. So, Rogge surprisingly told Teo about the perfect score.
9 July 2005
Singapore's IOC member, Ng Ser Miang is vying for a spot in the IOC Executive Board to replace Greek Lambis Nikolaou, whose term ends on this day. He is one of the two shortlisted candidates. The other one is Ivan Dibos from Peru. The vote will be held today and the IOC will also name two new vice-presidents today. Ng Ser Miang was the only one in the race after Ivan backed out, but he still had to go through a vote. He managed to get a vote of 86 out of 99, and is elected to the executive board. Nikolaou was elected as vice president as well as another IOC member from Japan.
World's Impression on Singapore
A Canadian television report said that the session has placed the country in the centre of the sporting universe. They also said it seemed the spotlight was on six cities and not just the five candidate cities. The reporters trailed celebrities hitting the tarmac and kept tavs inside the Raffles lobbies and tried to give the readers a feel of the hotels. The media also said that most visitors' first taste of Singapore is am irritating ding-dong in the taxi exceeds the speed limit according to the Reuters. It also added that it is not uncommon to be asked how much you earn or pay in rent, but okay to be evasive and said many Singaporeans speak a peculiar slang called Singlish. The chewing gum topic was another favourite. UK's The Sunday Telegraph said "So who is going to win? With so many possible permutations, predicting the result is about as futile as looking for a pack of chewing gum in Singapore." The New York Times suggested the mayor, Michael Bloomberg might have picked up from his trip to the city-state. The article was headlined The Nexus of Gum and Games and said :If the Mayor seeks a distraction from his Olympics defeat by looking for something new to ban, he could do worse than to follow the Singapore tradition by hounding gum-chewers as he did smokers." As for the record, most reports stated it was legal to chew gum here though it could not be bought except for medical reasons. The Americans were alerted to a US State Department advisory that told travellers to treat the nations rules on jaywalking and littering with respect. A New York tabloid published a whole list of the dos and dont's on the etiquette on the island. The case of Michael Fay also surfaced. The New York Times also added that "Doesnt a tiny part of you wish the police could get really tough with those who defile the sidewalks with litter and spit? "What do you think the odds are that the young Ohio man will ever vandalise the car again. From references, grudging or not, were made to Singapore's lush greenery, the "tough" drug laws, the "rare" traffic jams, the tight security checks was not unnoticed too. The British daily, The Guardian write on the terrorism spectre that stalks the Games, noted that "Even here in Singapore, during the meeting of the 116 members, security has at times been stifling. Access to Swissôtel, where the members are staying , has been severely restricted and squadrons of Gurkhas armed with hand- and machine guns patrolling inside and outside the hotel."
Media Confusion on Session Venue
There was some kind of confusion by the foreign newspapers mixing up the high end Raffles Hotel and Raffles City. Reuters wrote this "It is a national monument, the jewel in Singapore's crown, and this week, Raffles Hotel will becoming a bubbling cauldron of lobbying and politics as it stages the most keenly-contested Olympic venue vote in the history of the Games. Its Colonial style salons and parlours will be overrun by bid officials and consultants, celebrities and spin-doctors." Later, it clarified that the vote was actually at the adjacent Raffles City Convention Centre and not the hotel. British paper, The Guardian, in a report on the London team isolating themselves on Sentosa wrote "They have deliberately retreated from the hothouse atmosphere of the Raffles Hotel complex, the venue for the IOC congress, to perfect a final pitch they believe will be crucial in gathering the votes London requires to win." The Weekend Australian reported "First order of the business that day at Raffles Hotel will be determining whether any changes are to be made to the Olympic programme......" The Bangkok Post said "Members of the International Olympic Committee from around the globe will meet July 6-9 at the historic Raffles Hotel to pick the hosts of the 2012 Games of the Olympiad."
Olympic Anthem Criticism
The Singaporean trio who sung the Olympic Anthem in Greek was criticised by both the media and the audience. They are Singaporean soprano Khor Ai Ming, Singaporean tenor William Lim and Japanese soprano Satsuki Nagatome. The trio sung with gusto just before the announcement of the 2012 Summer Olympics. The feedback on their pre-recorded performance was not music to the ears. The Guardian reported on their operatic rendition "Two Singaporean sopranos and a tenor dress like a maitre d' subjected... a tune whose primary virtue is to be heard only once every four years, to a fearful mauling." The Times of the UK described them as "three Orientals... one distinctly off key". Khor said that feedback from the IOC was good. The trio were picked by the show's producer and performed on the anthem the day before at Esplanade at the opening ceremony. A poll conducted in the nation said the rendition was embarrassing. A Singaporean lady switched TV channels when the trio appeared. There were other criticisms too.
