Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee announced the membership  on Thursday of 14 working groups that will develop “Olympic Agenda 2020” – the IOC’s roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement. 

Agenda 2020 centres on five themes: the uniqueness of the Olympic Games, athletes at the heart of the Olympic Movement, Olympism in action, the IOC’s role and IOC structure and organisation.

Each working group is to be chaired by an IOC member. John Coates, an outspoken critic of Rio’s preparations, is to head up the working group on bidding procedure. Sir Craig Reedie is to lead on good governance and autonomy. 

The working groups include athletes and representatives of the International Federations and National Olympic Committees. A number of experts have also been appointed from outside the Olympic Movement, including representatives from leading international non-governmental and business organisations. 

The aim of the working groups is to compile and discuss contributions to the Olympic Agenda 2020, which the IOC describes as a “strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement”. Many contributions to the debate of the future of the Olympic Movement have already been received from the Olympic Family and wider public via a call for feedback via email. 

The working groups will first meet in June, close to Olympic Day, and their findings discussed at the Olympic Summit in July and at an Executive Board Meeting on 22-24th October in Lausanne. The resulting proposals for Olympic Agenda 2020 will then be presented to all IOC members for discussion at the IOC Extraordinary Session in Monaco on 8 and 9 December 2014.

The 14 Working Groups are: Bidding Procedure (Chair John D. Coates, AC); Sustainability and Legacy (Chair Prince Sovereign Albert II); Differentiation of the Olympic Games (Chair Sam Ramsamy); Procedure for the composition of the Olympic Programme (Chair Franco Carraro); Olympic Games Management (Chair Mario Pescante); Protecting Clean Athletes (Chair Claudia Bokel); Olympic TV Channel (Chair Thomas Bach); Olympism in action including Youth Strategy; (Chair Gerardo Werthein); Youth Olympic Games (Chair Ser Miang Ng); Culture Policy (Chair Lambis V. Nikolaou); Good governance and autonomy (Chair Craig Reedie); Ethics (Chair Youssoupha Ndiaye); Strategic review of sponsorship, licensing and merchandising (Chair Tsunekazu Takeda); IOC Membership (Chair The Grand Duke Henri of Luxemburg).

The complete list of Working Groups can be viewed here.

As a distance swimmer, Janet Evans broke seven world records and won five Olympic medals. But she is in a different kind of race now, as vice chair and director of athlete relations at LA24 – the bid committee for Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is one of four cities bidding for the 2024 Olympic Games, along with Budapest, Paris and Rome. How these cities interpret Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s “strategic roadmap for the Olympic movement”, will be crucial to their success.

Evans spoke with Host City at SportAccord Convention about how her city’s ambitions are aligned with those of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Use what you already have

A primary challenge for cities bidding for and hosting the Olympic Games is to have venues that are used an on-going basis in the city, while also being optimised for Games time. 

This is not only a logistical issue but also a financial and reputational one – so much so that the IOC, which holds the rights to the Olympic Games and brand, has placed venue sustainability at the heart of its strategy. 

The first of the 40 recommendations of Olympic Agenda 2020 states “The IOC to actively promote the maximum use of existing facilities and the use of temporary and demountable venues.”

Evans says, “It’s interesting that 97 per cent of our venues will be built before 2024 irrespective of our bid. A lot of new venues are already going up for various sporting events within southern California. The only permanent venue we’d have to build would be a new kayak venue.”

The iconic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum served as the Olympic Stadium in 1932 and 1984 and would take centre stage again in 2024. Over the years the venue has hosted NFL, Major League Baseball, soccer and entertainment events in addition to regular sporting events staged by its owner, the University of Southern California (USC).

USC Athletics is funding a US$270m renovation of the Coliseum that is planned, Evans says, “irrespective of our bid”. These works are scheduled to take place between 2017 and 2019.

Another big conundrum for host cities is how to accommodate athletes during the Games. As with sports venues, possible solutions include building for legacy use, or using temporary or existing facilities. LA24 has opted for the latter, arranging for USC and the city’s other big university, UCLA, to accommodate athletes on its campus during the Games. 

“It’s a great place for athletes as there are a lot of training facilities,” says Evans. “A lot of our athletes in the US come through the university training system so we are very pleased with our choice of UCLA.”

Listen to the IFs

Another challenge faced by Olympic bidding and organising committees is to make sure their venue plans are in line with the priorities of the international federations (IFs) that govern Olympic sports. Many IFs have expressed frustration with the Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (OCOG) for Rio 2016, with construction running behind schedule. 

Olympic Agenda 2020 sets out to avoid this happening in future by determining to “enhance the role of the IFs in the planning and delivery of the Olympic competitions, including the study of transferring technical responsibilities from the OCOGs to the IFs.”

Evans says having most of the venues already built enables LA24 to focus on engaging with IFs during the bidding phase; and events like Host City and SportAccord Convention give bidding cities the opportunity to do so.

“It’s wonderful to be here to listen and learn and understand what federations would like to see in a bid and help bring that into our bid and understand things,” says Evans.

Between January and April 2016, Evans and LA24’s sports director Doug Arnot met with all 28 Olympic IFs to ask them about their priorities for their sports. “It was a real listening and learning exercise, so we could go home and take that back to our team and say, here’s what this IF would really like to see.

“And another thing we feel is that if and when we win the Games, since our venues are built, we can spend seven years working not only on venues and upgrades but also on making the athlete experience great. So I think the sustainability of LA and the fact that our venues are built is really powerful.”

Athletes at the heart

Another key aim of Agenda 2020 is to “put the athletes’ experience at the heart of the Olympic Games”. This is the Evans’ main area of focus now –  “I know that’s what President Bach wants to see,” she says.

To achieve this, she is tapping into the US’s enviable network of Olympians and Paralympians – not just US natives but also Olympic alumni who have competed for other countries in the Games and now live in the US.

LA24 is running a road show of “Athlete Town Hall” meetings. “We want to ask for the input and advice of athletes. We felt there was no better way to receive that input than to speak to them in person.

“We are looking for opinions and advice and things that we can make better and things that were loved by the athletes.”

The first Athlete Town Hall meeting was in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale area of south Florida in early April. LA24 is to conduct between 12 and 15 of these meetings over the course of 2016 in cities throughout the US.

“We see this as a national bid, not just a bid for the state of California or the city of Los Angeles. It’s a bid from our entire country to bring the summer Games back to the US for the first time since 1996.”

Culture and creativity

Another aim of Agenda 2020 is to achieve a “further blending of sports and culture”. Los Angeles is famed for its entertainment industry, but Evans says this is just one part of the mix. 

“I think Los Angeles is in a true renaissance. We have US$88bn of infrastructure going into our new transport system, in our airport; our city is changing everything – it’s vibrant and hip. We have this great accumulation of the entertainment world as well as technology and creativity.

“I believe if we have the honour of hosting the Games there are so many interesting things we could do to help promote sport and bring youth into the Games. Los Angeles is a mecca of creativity, of innovation, of change and I think that’s evident when you come to our city.”

Recent allegations and revelations of doping and bribery in some Olympic sports are a reputational threat to the Games. Asked what LA24 can do to safeguard against these threats, Evans says “I think there’s a lot of joy and positive things that are in this movement. That’s what we all believe in – I believe in the Olympic movement and what it does for future generations and in what athletics can portray to the world. 

“We want to bring the positive – I want to find out what the athletes can bring to other people. I want everyone to experience the Olympics for what they really are, which is what I see as the Olympics, which is this great celebration of humanity, peace and friendship and continuity.

“So I think that’s what we need to remember: the Olympics are an incredible movement and I’m just proud to be a small part of it.”

Ladies and gentlemen: happily, welcome back to Glasgow. Clearly the city is very happy to host this important conference as it grows in reach and importance each year. And the rich and varied opportunities for cities which host events can be seen from the whole range of topics that you will discuss.

From a purely sports point of view, the Glasgow experiences make pretty interesting reading. This city has roughly 800,000 people, although the Clyde valley conurbation is around two million, many in close proximity. This is a relatively small population, but the city in the eight years from 2012 to 2020 has hosted, or will host, major events in football, cycling, netball, swimming, athletics, tennis, gymnastics, judo, curling, badminton, golf, rugby, rowing and triathlon – with Paralympic swimming to be added to the list.

Some other numbers can also be added to the list of credits: a contribution to the economy of the city of £370m; an investment in sports facilities since 2009 which totals around £200m; attendance figures in 2015 at sports facilities in Glasgow of 6.4m people, with 800,000 at the World Gymnastics Championships in the new Hydro Arena – an event which produced the best presentation of indoor sports that I have ever seen.

And outside the events themselves, a list of plusses which might be described as the softer legacies: 20,900 junior members of sports clubs, an increase of 367 since 2009; 4,580 coaches engaged with sports clubs, up 95 per cent since 2009; and 4490 volunteers engaged with sports clubs, up 110 per cent since 2009.

Now the reason for this boom in sports activities is not too difficult to find. The 2014 Commonwealth Games were a triumph for the city. Following the success of the 2012 London Olympic Games they showed just what can be achieved with some good planning of facilities, their legacy, then promotion, enthusiasm and organisation – to say nothing of the overall benefits to the city to be garnered from worldwide television coverage and exposure, and a huge growth in digital media conversation and interest.

But not all cities are lucky enough to have the opportunity organise one of the big multi-sport events and use this as a catalyst for facility development and public interest – although the 2018 European Sports Championships is an interesting development along the same lines, but with a more modest footprint.

Hosting events – and in particular sports events – is an ever more competitive business, although there is clearly a mismatch between enthusiasm for what I might call individual events as opposed to major multi-sport events.

The IOC have struggled to attract anything like the number of cities for Olympic Games compared to those years ago when many more put their names forward. And the new bidding rules under Agenda 2020 are hoped to be the antidote required. With the loss of Rome for 2024, the jury is on this is still out.

The Commonwealth Games Federation are not exactly awash with applicants for future Commonwealth Games, and the Olympic Winter Games bidding process was reduced to two final candidates.

The Asian Games appeared to be less affected, with the number of large – 10m people – cities in China providing enthusiasm for the bidding process, which rather replaces the efforts made over the years by Korea with almost 30 years of experience.

But for individual sporting events, the world is a very very active place. Auckland in New Zealand is more than active with rugby, cricket, hockey and sailing.

Smaller countries – Danish cities all pulled together by the splendid Sport Event Denmark organisation – are keen hosts for handball, sailing, ice hockey, swimming, badminton, cycling and equestrian events.

If you head south, Sydney and Melbourne offer attractive options for sailing, for surfing, for rugby, tennis, Formula 1 and many others. Australia will also host the 2018 Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, with mutterings of a possible future Brisbane Olympic bid.

In golf there is much enhanced interest in continental Europe with future Ryder Cups in France and Italy and the new developments in Antalya in Turkey offering a whole range of new and impressive sports facilities will inevitably lead to hosting opportunities.

The agenda for Host City throws up a whole series of issues which will apply to almost any event held by and promoted by a host city…. But returning to the sports theme, it would be wrong of me not to refer to the challenges you will discuss on the integrity of sport.

Sport has gone through and still goes through a difficult period due to clear abuses of the standards on doping matters. These have brought extreme challenges to sport, to its major events, its federations and have encouraged huge media comment, very little of it favourable.

Issues of governance of sport and criticism of how it selects its host cities have added fuel to the fire. However, I was recently in Tokyo, host city for the 2020 Olympic Games and I am encouraged by the enthusiasm and excitement in both city and country at the prospect of hosting the Games in 2020.

Despite the inevitable arguments about possible venue changes and money – subjects that are endemic in any Olympic city and its organising committee – the Japanese ability to seek long term legacies that are relevant to their society and provide opportunities to showcase their own innovative technologies offers the Olympic movement a real opportunity to change the scepticism which appears to exist and which elicits much comment.

And this I find to be really exciting and may well be a force for greatly increased enthusiasm for Olympic and other multi-sport events. And if the Tokyo experience is proved to work, there must be a chance of a distinct on-going effect in many other similar events.

So with this rather enthusiastic view of the future I leave you to your debates; to the new ideas that will be generated; to the new experiences and friendships that are the mark of a good conference; and to a really happy visit to Glasgow, which is the whole point of being a welcoming host city.

This article is an edited transcript of Sir Craig Reedie’s keynote address at Host City 2016. To listen to the full address and other sessions, visit www.hostcity.com/hc2016/audio

At the 129th IOC Session on the eve of the 2016 Olympic Games, eight new members were elected to the International Olympic Committee by its current membership. 
The new members, recommended by the IOC Executive Board on the advice of the IOC Members Election Commission, are highly diverse, representing business, politics and sports administration. 
Nita Ambani, chair of the Reliance Foundation and owner of the Mumbai Indians cricket team, became the first Indian woman IOC member. 
Finland also gained its first woman IOC member in the politician and former race walking champion Sari Essayah.
South African film producer Anant Singh and Colombia's former ambassador to the U.S Luis Moreno were also elected to the IOC. 
Three National Olympic Committee (NOC) leaders were elected, with Austria Olympic committee chief Karl Stoss, Canadian Olympic committee president Tricia Smith and Secretary General of the Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee Auvita Rapilla all taking up membership. 
Ivo Ferriani, the Italian president of the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation, was the only representative of an International Federation (IF) elected as a new member. Up to 15 NOCs and 15 IFs can be represented within the IOC membership.
The election brings the total membership to 98. IOC members vote on host cities of future Olympic Games and sports to be included in the Games, as well as providing direction for the Olympic Movement. 
As part of the “Agenda 2020” programme of reform of the Olympic Movement initiated by Thomas Bach and approved by IOC members in 2014, the IOC is taking a fresh approach to bringing new members on board, to “move from an application to a targeted recruitment process”.
The IOC Members Election Commission is taking a more proactive role in identifying the right candidates to filling vacancies in order to best fulfil the mission of the IOC.
Under the new procedure, the profile of candidates must now comply with a set of criteria submitted by the Commission to the IOC Executive Board for approval. 
These criteria relate to the IOC’s needs, which it identifies as including: “skills and knowledge (e.g. medical expertise, sociological expertise, cultural expertise, political expertise, business expertise, legal expertise, sports management expertise, etc.); geographic balance, as well as a maximum number of representatives from the same country” and “gender balance”. 
Agenda 2020 also highlights “the existence of an athletes’ commission within the organisation for representatives of IFs/NOCs.”
The IOC Members Election Commission is chaired by Princess Anne of Great Britain, herself an IOC member. According to Reuters, she identified Moreno, Singh and Ambani as “candidates outside the Olympic and sport community who could usher in a fresh approach and new skills to the organisation”.
 

Agenda One: Event Delivery
The first agenda is to deliver the Games; that is non-discretionary and something you have to do. The cost is given and it’s mandatory, because it’s the IOC requirements and there’s national pride involved and a number of other considerations. 
The cost of this has been remarkably constant over the last 15 years – around US$2.5bn to US$3bn. But that’s covered by income from IOC contributions, local sponsorship, ticket sales and merchandise so there is no net cost.  

Agenda Two: Sporting Legacy
The second agenda is leaving a sporting legacy. That is partly mandated by the IOC requirement, but you have some leeway on how you do that. So you have a choice of whether your stadiums and arenas are permanent structures, which always runs the risk of being white elephants, or temporary or demountable structures – or even, according to Agenda 2020, you can move it to another city. 
For example, if you don’t have a velodrome you have to deliver one somehow. And if you do it correctly, that can be a legacy – but there are lots of examples of not being a legacy: The Athens 2004 Games is the prime example of white elephants and a complete horror story.
The main issue with this second agenda is that venues should be designed for legacy and enabled for Games. Most people do it the other way round and then there’s a rush to modify it for legacy.
A positive example is the aquatics centre in London; we worked very closely with Zaha Hadid on that. It was designed to be a community swimming pool with 2,500 seats. Temporarily, those wings were built – they looked absolutely awful, but they were functional and it ended up being an Olympic-compliant aquatics centre of 17,500 seats. It was designed for legacy and enabled for the Games temporarily. 

Agenda Three: City Legacy
The third agenda is what you want to use the Olympics for and our advice to any city or region that wants to host the Games is that you first have to decide what you are going to use the Olympics for. And if you don’t get that right, you run into a lot of problems about public acceptance of the Olympics as a project.
This is where discretion comes into play. It cost London GB£1.8bn just to make the Olympic park into a building site. London made that call because it wanted to use the Olympics to regenerate part of East London. The city didn’t have to do it; they chose to do it because otherwise it would never happen; it would still be a dump with remnants from the blitz, asbestos, oil and corpses.
A bad example is Sochi. A lot of what happened in Sochi had nothing to do with the Olympics. It cost US$55bn, but only a fraction of that was Olympic costs. They wanted Sochi to be a tourist destination and they also wanted to be able to build for the football World Cup in 2018. So they wanted to use it for something completely different from the Winter Olympics. That was their choice and that has poisoned the bidding process for a number of other cities, including my home town of Oslo where the population got a backlash going against bidding for the 2022 Winter Games. 
Our advice to cities or regions who want to stage Olympic Games is to first of all to get the third agenda right, because that is what you need to sell it to the population, to get a yes vote on a possible referendum. It has to be something more tangible than a velodrome. 
What we like to do very early in the process is to make the city or region able to make an informed decision whether to bid or not. To do that they need to cost out all the three agendas. What we usually recommend is to do a number of technical and financial feasibility studies, cost-benefit analyses over 20 to 30 years. 
One city we have recently worked with is Amsterdam, who will probably not bid for the 2028 Olympic Games. And way back in 2002-2003 we wrote the original feasibility study that made a business case for London to bid for the Games. 

Beyond the Bid – Tokyo and Qatar
We also see our role to be the trusted technical advisor for a host city. We like to work in tandem with the communications agencies, because if you give them a free rein you need a lot of engineers and technical consultants to clean things up in the back room.
We have been working for two and half years on Tokyo 2020 for Tokyo Metropolitan Government; we are currently negotiating for a third year. When we started work on Tokyo, we looked at some of the things that they proposed and advised that they weren’t going to work. The stadium was one of those things, and some of the temporary venues they wanted to put on the island out in the bay.
And we have been working for about five years on the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. From our side it’s going well; we have been working on technical assurance of the stadiums: sitting client-side and advising the design consultants based on FIFA compliance and other criteria. 
The thing I am a little bit concerned about is that I don’t think they’d gone far enough on planning what they wanted. I think they sold it on the basis of demountable stadiums, so they basically said we are going to build a number of 40,000 seater stadiums and send 20,000 seats off to Africa. It is feasible, but it hasn’t been designed yet. Somebody calculated that you need 178 containers to dispatch the 20,000 seats. Apart from that, everything is deliverable, no doubt about that.

This article is based on a Host City interview with Erik G Andersen, Special Advisor of Arup’s Host Cities Advisory Service. Andersen has worked on 10 Olympic Games over 25 years
 

Over the last few years, the increase in costs to host major sport events has been astonishing. As a result, in the midst of a global economic downturn, many countries have shied away from bidding and hosting major sport events due to the huge investment and infrastructure needed to host a safe and successful event.

 
As the last 12 months have shown, the sports industry is facing a period where it isn’t just the bidding cities that need to do the convincing, but also the rights holders of those major events too. Major sports events are fast becoming a luxury that few can afford.

Take the Olympic Games as an example, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has already taken a lead to try and reduce the cost of bidding for and hosting the Games through its Agenda 2020 programme, with many other major continental and multi-sport events beginning to follow suit and thinking harder about how to reduce costs in order to attract bidding cities. 

What is apparent is that – in the face of constantly evolving threats and risks and growing security costs - many aspiring host cities and countries now simply cannot afford to host major sport events, particularly in the face of many social, economic and political challenges that face countries around the world today. 

Budgets have overrun on numerous occasions for major international sporting events with many of these costs being borne, more often than not, by the host city and the public purse.      

But what part does security play in the cost cutting debate and what can be done to reduce the costs when planning for security?

Many agree that security has a vital role to play in the success of any major sport event or venue, as well as the overall spectator experience, however over the last decade major event security costs have spiralled in the face of huge international uncertainty and other emerging security threats. This year alone, over R$400 million (approx. US$100 million) will be spent on public security by Rio de Janeiro in the lead up to next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games. All of this, in the face of a huge economic downturn taking place in the country. 

As part of our work at the ICSS, our team of international experts have dedicated themselves to help develop a more cost effective approach to major event safety and security, as well as encouraging a more coordinated, international and long-term effort to enhance understanding about safety and security issues threatening sport.  
It is clear that the industry - both sport as a whole and the security sector - is at a turning point in the evolution of major sport events and that public and private bodies must be more creative in the way it cuts costs, without cutting corners. 

One approach the ICSS firmly believes in to help host cities in this area is to integrate security planning from the start to ensure that all aspects of security are covered – and in a timely manner.  

Based on years of international experience and research, the ICSS has developed cutting edge models to help secure host cities and countries achieve this and will hopefully serve as a master guide to major event security planning.
It is also critical to perform a thorough threat and risk assessment at an earlier stage of the event life cycle. Resulting from this, security planning and budgeting can be prepared and then  integrated into sport facility security design from the very beginning. 

As we have seen in the past, last-minute surprises and reactive approaches to a security issue have been costly for many host cities, with significant amounts on public money being spent on hiring private security firms or other public sector resources (e.g. police forces, military) being called upon at the last minute in order to fill a security gap. An example of this was London 2012, which exceeded its original security budget by roughly 105%!

By integrating security right from the beginning of the design phase for venues, organisers can make significant savings by identifying potential threats to the event and venues at an early stage in the process and thus preventing rework, delays, penalties and incorrect use of materials later on. 

It is also worth remembering that security at a major event is not just about the venue. It is also about creating a safe and secure environment in other public areas like fan zones and public viewing areas to ensure spectators have peace of mind and can fully experience a city or country by using local infrastructure to create that ‘special’ atmosphere that many organisers are looking for. 

Since athletes, fans and VIP’s have to move between locations, it is also crucial that route and transport security is also fully integrated into the overall design and operations of an event. This requires a significant level of security planning and communication, particularly with the material screening facilities required to screen all goods that enter a venue. 

Through our work here at the ICSS, we have noticed that not enough events at the moment think about how security design of their sport venues impacts on the wider security planning and user experience. By bringing on board the security consultant from the early stages, potential operational problems can be identified from the outset and avoid costly changes to the venue or awkward workarounds once the venue has been built.

Looking ahead, as major events and the industry continues to look at new ways to reduce costs, it is important that security plays its role too. At the ICSS, through our ongoing work helping to secure venues and major events, our experts are contributing and continuing to look for new, cost-effective ways to protect those who attend major events. 

Nevertheless, it is important though that sport does not lose sight of the many new threats in the world today and that we do all we can to ensure the highest levels of safety and security for fans, athletes and the many others that love and attend sport events. 

This can only be achieved by major events bringing on board the security consultant at an earlier stage and recognising the numerous benefits that  a thorough threat and risk assessment and an integrated approach to security can have on an event – both operationally and on the bottom line. 

Malcolm Tarbitt is speaking at Host City 2015

HOST CITY: The IOC must be very pleased with the pool of cities bidding for the 2024 Olympic Games?

Sir Craig Reedie: Yes I think we are. It’s quite interesting that the change in the candidature rules, which came out of the whole reform process called Agenda 2020, seems to have attracted a very considerable field of really good cities. 

We are now waiting for further information from Paris, from Hamburg, from Rome, from Budapest and from a North American city – eventually, Los Angeles.

HOST CITY: It must have been a relief when Los Angeles stepped forward – was that anticipated?

Sir Craig Reedie: Yes, I think the USOC have all but admitted that their process might not have worked in the selection of Boston. But, with Boston’s withdrawal, they were fortunate in many ways that the Los Angeles people were so able to come to the party very quickly and in a relatively tight timeframe, because they had a number of things to agree with Los Angeles city before the necessity of putting in a formal bid on the 15th of September. 

Los Angeles has an Olympic record – if they win they will be like London, hosting the third time. The city has changed dramatically over the last few years and I am sure they will come forward with a very good bid. 

HOST CITY: And the other cities represent a different spread to what we’ve seen in recent bidding procedures. 

Sir Craig Reedie: Yes, it’s an interesting mix. Paris is looking to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1924 Games in Paris and has clear bidding experience. 

Rome hosted outstanding Games in 1960 and there seems to be considerable enthusiasm in Italy and in Rome behind the Rome bid, so they are impressive.

Budapest has come quite late to the party but again a splendid city and Hungary has a terrific Olympic record. 

It’s interesting that when the German Olympic Committee decided to choose Hamburg as opposed to Berlin, who I suppose before that decision would have been seen to be favourite, immediately there was strong support from Berlin for the Hamburg choice. So again there seems to be a great deal of unity there. 

So it’s a really good field. 

HOST CITY: The Olympic bidding process has changed, hasn’t it – after the new invitation phase, we are now straight into the candidature phase.

Sir Craig Reedie: You have to go back a few years to when the system changed from one bidding system into a two phase system – applicant and then candidate. That has now been refined and the big addition has been the invitation phase before a National Olympic Committee decides finally to put a city into the candidature role. 

The closing date was 15 September. So for several months before that, cities that were thinking of bidding for the Games, and the National Olympic Committees, came to meet the relevant people in the Olympic Games department and the candidate cities department of the IOC to sit down and work out exactly how the Games would fit into their city; how it would provide legacy; how it would be sustainable; how it would fit into city plans. And the cities were given a great deal of information from the IOC, as it does have a great deal of information from previous bidding processes. 

That’s a complete change from the previous process, where the IOC had a very detailed list of requirements and cities bid against that list. 

So there is a major change there and I understand that it has been welcomed by the cities, all of whom have been to see the IOC in the invitation phase, and by other cities who went and subsequently decided not to bid but learned a great deal from the exercise and may do so in the future. 

And then we come to the candidature phase, which is divided into three parts.

The first part, which runs until June 2016, is the Vision, Games Concept and Strategy and the candidate city’s “bid book” will be submitted electronically. There will be consultation with the IOC throughout and at the end of that first phase the Executive Board will decide whether the cities will move to the second phase, which runs from June to December 2016 and deals with governments, legal matters and venue funding. 

Again, the presentations will be made through the IOC with a great deal of assistance and the Executive Board will again make a decision on moving people forward to the third phase, which is Games Delivery, Experience and Venue Legacy and runs from December 2016 through to the selection in September 2017. 

So rather than one huge bid book being required at a set date, it’s divided into three sections. There are workshops planned; there are assistances planned to the cities throughout. 

HOST CITY: is there any possibility that any of the cities might not proceed beyond each of these particular stages?

Sir Craig Reedie: The whole point of the exercise with the IOC is to help them to get presentations and plans submitted that actually fit not only what the IOC wants for good Games but also what the cities want themselves. There’s an element of skill and discretion needed in doing that; the IOC have to deal with information from one city on a confidential basis and they have to be fair with all five cities. And if they do that, the system will work. 

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a city could come back and say we’re not taking it any further – I think that’s unlikely in the sense that a lot of work will have gone into this, a lot of discussions have gone on through the invitation phase. And since it’s going on through a stage by stage basis I think it’s highly unlikely that people will withdraw. 

The end result of that is that we will have five cities presenting to the Session on the ultimate decision to be taken in Lima in Peru in 2017. 

HOST CITY: Five is a very good number of cities. 

Sir Craig Reedie: It’s a very good number. I have very warm memories of five cities presenting in 2005 in Singapore. 

HOST CITY: And this is all the result of a process of change initiated by IOC President Thomas Bach, which is reflected by the broad theme of the HOST CITY 2015 conference, “Creative Innovation”. Why the need for change in the IOC?

Sir Craig Reedie: I think the principle that Thomas Bach enunciated, to change or change will be forced upon you, is a good one. 

People forget that the previous bidding process was certainly the gold standard in sport the world over. If you find that there is a reluctance to bid – and clearly there was an element of that in the 2022 Winter Games situation – then perhaps you should be prepared to do a little bit of out of the box thinking. 

And the whole Agenda 2020 process started with two long four or five day meetings of the Executive Board which were effectively a think tank. We ranged all over the place and at the end of the day came up with a coordinated and sensible view of how we wanted to run the Games but also to promote the Olympic movement for the future. 

There were some fairly dramatic discussions on the bidding process of the Games. We wanted to make it more inclusive, we wanted to make it more cooperative, we wanted to make it cheaper, we wanted to make it encouraging to more cities to become involved. 

In the process of bidding for sporting events, it’s a competitive field. The Olympic Games are the greatest show on earth; it’s important that they maintain this status. It’s important that the athletes regard them as the greatest show on earth and something they really want to take part in. 

So therefore a process of change is a perfectly reasonable thing to undertake.

HOST CITY: What are your expectations of HOST CITY 2015 in Glasgow?

Sir Craig Reedie: From my point of view of being involved in HOST CITY 2015, I am delighted that the event is coming to Glasgow, because Glasgow has shown that it is a sporting city with the way it has developed its facilities, the way it ran a major multi-sport event, the Commonwealth Games in 2014, and what it’s been doing since then – not least a couple of hugely successful Davis Cup tennis ties. 

So if you look at the excitement that generates locally, and the promotion that it gives the city on a worldwide basis, then I think this indicates that the market out there is a buoyant one.

Cities should be very well prepared to become involved and therefore they should be thinking ahead; they should be innovative – and with a bit of luck they will reap the benefits that Glasgow has.