The South African Olympic Committee is said to be contemplating a country-wide bid for the 2024 Olympic Games, inspired by the IOC’s recent Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms. 

“The country now has taken a different view of it, taking more of a country approach than a provincial,” Ivor Hoff, head of sports at Gauteng Province told HOST CITY exclusively. 

“Because of the new IOC bidding and hosting criteria, the country will take this into consideration.”

Gauteng Province had been mentioned as a potential contender for an Olympic bid. Durban and Pretoria have also been mentioned as possible candidates. 

But now, the South African Olympic Committee is instead said to be reviewing its bid for the 2024 Olympic Games and putting forward a proposal that links a number of host destinations.

“When Sam Ramsamy came back from [the IOC Session in] Switzerland he reported he is going to make a presentation to the South African parliament.”

 As South Africa’s parliament is in recess this week, Hoff expects Ramsamy to make the presentation next week. 

“Sam will make the presentation and decisions will be taken from there.”

HOST CITY contacted SASCOC but Sam Ramsamy was unavailable for comment.

Agenda 2020 opened up the Olympic bidding process to allow for bids to be spread across more than one city. 

“One city was quite a problematic approach, because it could potentially bankrupt that city,” said Hoff.

“A developmental country like South Africa could look at it more comprehensively with several cities – this would be much better for a developmental country like South Africa.”

South Africa has recent experience of hosting a nationwide mega event. 

Ivor Hoff was a key figure in hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with a particular focus on legacy benefits for health, education and housing.

“Based on a really positive 2010 FIFA World Cup, we’ve got a good understanding of how the country can benefit from hosting major events.”

South Africa has until 15 September 2015 to define its applicant for the 2024 Olympic Games. 

So far, Rome and Boston have announced their intention to bid. The host city will be elected at the 130th IOC Session in Lima on 15 September 2017.

A day ahead of schedule, members of the International Olympic Committee approved all 40 Olympic Agenda 2020 recommendations at the 127th IOC Session in Monaco on Monday. 

96 of the IOC’s full membership of 104 were in attendance to vote on the recommendations. IOC president Bach, who instigated Olympic Agenda 2020 shortly after taking to the helm in 2013, praised the members in approving this “strategic roadmap for the Olympic movement”.

Two days had been allowed for the approval process, but all recommendations were approved on Monday, with no votes against and no abstentions. At the close of Monday’s meeting, members gave their unanimous support for the entire set of recommendations in an “en bloc” vote.

“The speed at which Olympic Agenda 2020 was approved showed the great support and determination of the members to make it happen”, president Bach said at a press conference. “It was a very, very positive surprise. But it followed over a year of constructive discussions.”

The changes that will now be put into action include allowing multi-host Games, lowering the cost of bidding for the Games, an age limit on IOC membership and the launch of an Olympic TV channel. Host City contracts will also be made public and will now include clauses on worker’s rights, environmental protection and discrimination on sexuality.

Limiting the age of IOC membership to 70 will have an impact on a number of IOC members. FIFA president Sepp Blatter, for instance, will now have to relinquish his IOC membership in two years’ time.

“Some of the recommendations were not easy for certain members to swallow. Some may have hoped for no recommendation or a different recommendation on a specific issue,” said Bach.

“So it was encouraging that regardless of their individual interests or positions, they were determined to make Olympic Agenda 2020 a success. Speaking of the members, I have a great deal of respect for them to do this.”

The first recommendation approved relates to reducing the cost and boosting the appeal of bidding. Future bids will now be able to incorporate venues in more than one city and potentially than one country. 

This would enable countries with suitable venues in more than one city to avoid investing heavily in new sports infrastructure, which is often met with large-scale public opposition.

The changes were also greeted with approval from a contender for the 2022 Olympic Games. 

“Since the start of the 2022 Bid process, the Beijing 2022 Bid Committee has been paying close attention to all developments related to the Olympic Agenda 2020 and strongly supports all its recommendations,” said Madame Wang Hui, spokesperson for Beijing’s bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. 

“We highly appreciate the IOC’s approach and will work to implement these reforms.”

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach today (Tuesday) revealed 40 recommendations from the Agenda 2020 review of the Olympic Movement, which detail how to reduce costs and increase benefits for countries contemplating hosting the Games. 

Agenda 2020 was instigated in 2013, shortly after Bach’s election as IOC president and has since engaged a vast range of people. The review has taken place against a backdrop of Sochi 2014, which was perceived to be an extremely high cost event, and cities pulling out of bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games due to cost concerns.

The first three of the 40 recommendations relate to bidding, including details of how the world’s biggest event owner might financially support bidding cities and develop wider benefits with the host nation. 

Under the recommendations, the IOC would cover the travel and accommodation costs for six delegates for candidate city briefings to the IOC, ASOIF, AIOWF and the ANOC General Assembly, plus costs for 12 delegates travelling to the host city election at the IOC Session. 

The cost of cities hosting IOC Evaluation Commission visits would also be borne by the IOC. Printed versions of the candidature files would be axed, and consultants and lobbyists working for bidding cities would be monitored and registered by the IOC. 

These reductions in bidding cost are, however, tiny in relation to the costs of hosting the Olympic Games. This is why Agenda 2020 proposes “shaping the bidding process as an invitation” – a form of consultation with cities at an early stage, with a focus on cost and benefit. 

Under Agenda 2020, the IOC plans to better communicate the difference between the two different budgets related to hosting the Olympic Games: “long-term investment in infrastructure and return on such investment on the one hand, and the operational budget on the other hand,” as well as better communicating the IOC’s contribution to the operational budget. 

The IOC seeks to reduce the cost of venue infrastructure for cities by prioritising the use of existing and temporary facilities at this early stage of bid planning.

“The recommendations in Olympic Agenda 2020 are designed to change the bidding process in a positive way,” said Ole Einar Bjørndalen, IOC member for Norway, whose capital city Oslo pulled out of bidding for the 2022 Games in September 2014. 

“I think it is important to bring the Olympic Winter Games especially back to their roots, where the organisers are creating genuine winter festivals and where the inhabitants of the host city are as important as the athletes.

It is a step forward that the bidding cities will have the chance to focus on Games that work in the local context – socially, economically and environmentally.”

Olympic Agenda 2020 also opens up the possibility of Olympic Games events being hosted outside the host city – and even outside the host nation, in exceptional circumstances. 

“I think it is positive that the IOC will encourage the re-use of venues, temporary venues, and even the use of some venues in other regions and countries. This will lower the costs, which will hopefully make staging the Games more attractive for more countries,”said Bjørndalen.

The Swiss Ice Hockey Federation (SIHF) on Monday submitted its official candidacy for the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF)’s 2020 World Championship. 

Switzerland had previously announced it would bid for 2019, but is now targeting the 2020 edition. 

This leaves Slovakia as the only applicant for the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship.

The SIHF is being supported by international sports marketing company Infront Sports & Media during the candidature phase, building upon their previous successful cooperation for the 2009 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Berne and Kloten.

“We are delighted to be entering the candidacy and are confident that we can soon bring the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship to Switzerland,” said SIHF president Marc Furrer.

“Such an ice hockey festival in our country will further boost our sport. Therefore it is even more important that we can count on Infront for the joint venture.”

If Switzerland’s bid is successful, Infront will manage the organisation and the national marketing of the tournament in a 50/50 joint venture with SIHF.

“We are delighted to support the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation at this early stage already and to jointly lay the foundation for potentially carrying out the event in Switzerland in five years,” said Bruno Marty, executive director winter sports at Infront.

“We will contribute our expertise from many successful consulting assignments and partnerships for past IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships to provide fans, media and sponsors with not only top international sporting events, but also a first-class tournament experience.”

The SIHF’s candidacy documentation, which it has submitted to the IIHF headquarters in Zurich, proposes to use Zurich’s 11,200-seat Hallenstadion as the main venue for the Championship with potential second venues in Lausanne or Zug. 

The tournament will take place over three weeks in April/May 2020.

Switzerland, 7th in the World Ranking, has hosted the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship eight times, four of which were in the Zurich region. 

Slovakia, 8th in the World Ranking, hosted its only IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship as an independent country in 2011 in Bratislava and Kosice. Bratislava also co-hosted the 1959 and 1992 World Championships with Prague.

The venues for the 2019 World Championship bid will be named in the upcoming weeks, according to the IIHF. The Slovak Ice Hockey Association announced Bratislava and Kosice as potential candidates in September but has kept its options open.

No other candidate federations have come forward for the 2019 or 2020 World Championships at time of publication. 

The host of both the 2019 and 2020 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships will be announced in May 2015 at the IIHF Congress in Prague, Czech Republic during the 2015 World Championships.

The 2016 World Championships will be hosted in Moscow & St. Petersburg; 2017 in Cologne and Paris; and 2018 in Copenhagen & Herning.

The US Olympic Committee chose Boston on Thursday as the city that will bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, over competing offers from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. 

Boston has proposed a low-cost, regional and sustainable Games in keeping with the ideals of Olympic Agenda 2020, the new framework adopted by the IOC in December within which the bidding procedure for 2024 will operate.

The engagement of public and private stakeholders in Boston’s proposal is said to have outshone its rivals.

“One of the great things about the Boston bid was that the bid leadership and the political leadership were on the same page,” Scott Blackmun, chief executive of the US Olympic Committee told the Boston Globe. 

The White House gave a statement of presidential support for Boston, saying “The city has taught all of us what it means to be Boston Strong” – a reference to the slogan adopted by the city in the wake of the 2013 marathon bombings.

The decision was also welcomed by IOC president Thomas Bach, who said “The Boston bid will be a strong one.”

A major driver behind Agenda 2020 is change perceptions about the cost and benefit of hosting the Olympic Games. Boston proposes to spend just USD4.5bn on hosting the Games, which the bid committee says will be generated from broadcasting, sponsorship and ticketing revenues.

This figure does not include publicly funded investments in civic infrastructure, which the bid committee says the city has already committed to regardless of the Games bid. 

The cost of hosting the Games would be kept down by using existing facilities, including the multi-purpose TD Garden and a number of venues operated by colleges, such as Harvard Stadium, Boston College’s Conte Forum and Boston University’s Agganis Arena.

In a proposal reminiscent of London 2012, Boston’s Olympic stadium would be temporary, hosting the opening and closing ceremonies as well as track and field events.

The US last hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1996 at Atlanta. Since then the world’s biggest multisport event has been awarded to Asia/Oceania three times, Europe twice and South America once. 

The IOC does not, however, operate a policy of continental rotation and a number of factors will determine which city is selected in 2017 as the host of the 2024 Olympic Games. 

While current round of bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games has suffered from a crisis in appetite for hosting the Olympic Games, particulary in Europe, the race for 2024 is shaping up to be extremely competitive. 

Rome is the only other city so far to have confirmed it will bid for the 2024 Games, but a long list of other cities and regions are in various stages of evaluating and preparing bids. 

Baku, Budapest, Doha, Germany, Hamburg, Istanbul, Paris and South Africa are among the possible contenders. 

The selection of Boston will perhaps be something of a surprise to anyone outside the US Olympic Committee. Los Angeles, which has hosted the Olympics twice before, was the highest profile contender. Advisors to the IOC had indicated that Washington, D.C. had the strongest technical infrastructure. San Francisco is already established as one of the world’s most popular destinations for sports, business and leisure. 

Yet this is another factor behind Boston’s success: the city is new to Olympism, having never hosted or bid for an Olympic Games before. As such, it is less likely to show complacency in its bid, offering fresh pastures in an old city.

One of Boston’s biggest challenges will be garnering public support for the Games. A public meeting has been planned for Tuesday to gather feedback as the first stage of planning for the bid.

The International Olympic Committee has launched its reformed bidding procedure with a new invitation phase, during which National Olympic Committees can discuss their plans “at their earliest convenience” before the application deadline of 15 September.

This new consultative approach, launched four weeks after the adoption of Agenda 2020, will help NOCs to ascertain the viability of bidding for the Games before committing in full. 

These early discussions with the IOC have the potential to reducing the cost of bidding and organising the Games for cities – one of the key aims of Agenda 2020.

The concept of “shaping the bid process as an invitation” has been central to the Agenda 2020 review right from its inception. 

Another key aim of Agenda 2020 with regard to bidding process is to strengthen the evaluation of bid cities to more clearly highlight key opportunities and risks.

Until now, the bidding process for the Olympic Games has been split into two phases – the “applicant” and “candidature” phases, which will now follow the invitation phase. 

In the applicant phase, cities send in an application file which is studied by an IOC working group, who assess the bid for the IOC executive board. If approved by the board, the bid then progresses to the candidature phase, which requires much more detailed plans in the form of a candidature file and site visits. 

Interested NOCs and cities will now be able to receive “various levels of assistance and feedback” between now and the 15 September deadline for officially committing to a bid. 

“Bidding for the Games is not a tender for a franchise, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution,” the IOC said in a statement.

“The bid process is about making proposals and offering solutions that will deliver excellent Games, with no compromise on the field of play for the athletes while also meeting the needs of the city and region to ensure the Games leave a positive, long-term, sustainable legacy.”

Cities considering bidding for the Games are encouraged to place greater emphasis on the use of existing, temporary and demountable venues.

During the invitation phase, the IOC will inform interested parties of the “core requirements” necessary to organise the Games in order “to assist interested cities and their NOCs to develop a project that best meets each city’s unique long-term development needs.” 

The IOC also expressed its satisfaction with the “strong interest" in hosting the 2024 Olympic Games, with the NOCs of Germany, Italy and the United States already indicating their intention to bid.

The Asian Tour has agreed a three-year deal to host the ‘Dubai Open’ with Golf in Dubai, which has run the European Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic since 1989 and also organises the Dubai Ladies Masters tournament and the MENA Golf Tour.

Golf has become a key component of Dubai’s ambitious drive to host 20 million visitors annually by 2020 – the year in which the city will host the World Expo.

The Asian Tour said talks with prospective sponsors and different Dubai golf clubs are at an advanced stage, adding that Golf in Dubai will soon announce the official title, venue and dates of the newest tournament in the city.

Hailing the new event as an “important stop” on the calendar, Asian Tour chairman Kyi Hla Han said: “With so many prestigious tournaments, in particular the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, happening out there, the city is ideally placed to capitalise on its unique position as a diverse and high quality golfing destination.

“The Asian Tour is delighted to be coming to Dubai and I am sure our players will be very excited to compete in this new and exciting event in December. As a players’ organisation, the Asian Tour is represented by an eclectic mix of the finest players from across the region and internationally and we look forward to entertaining golf fans in Dubai.”

Mohamed Juma Buamaim, vice-chairman and chief executive of Golf in Dubai, added: “Events like this will continue to strengthen our strong historical ties with Asia. Dubai’s economy benefits both directly and indirectly from golf tourism, and there is a positive synergy between golf and the key tourism sectors. Golf is just one of the many reasons that people visit Dubai to savour the experience of playing on courses of international standard.”

Today’s news comes after it was announced last month that a new tournament in Mauritius will become the first tri-sanctioned event to be endorsed by the sport’s European, Asian and Sunshine Tours.

The three Tours, which are all founding members of the International Federation of PGA Tours, confirmed that the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open will take place at the Heritage Golf Club on the island from May 7-10, 2015.

Ryder Cup director Richard Hills confirmed that representative organisations in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey had lodged an interest in hosting the golf extravaganza by the August 31 deadline.

Official bids are now due to be submitted by February 16 and the host nation is expected to be confirmed next autumn.

“We are absolutely delighted at the level of interest we have received from across Europe in respect of hosting the 2022 Ryder Cup and we welcome each and every one of the seven letters of intent, each received through the respective national golf association, in accordance with bidding regulations,” Hills told reporters.

The Ryder Cup implemented a bidding process for the historic Europe versus USA team tournament for the first time for the 2018 event, which was secured by France ahead of rival bids from Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

“The implementation of this kind of formal bidding process for the 2018 Ryder Cup marked a new era for us all at Ryder Cup Europe, and this take-up for 2022 shows that the introduction of a fair, transparent and objective methodology has been welcomed across the continent,” Hills added.

“Not only that, we feel it is a process which befits a sporting event of the stature of the Ryder Cup and, as we have consistently stated, the key criteria in place will enable us to evaluate each bid equally on both its sporting and commercial merits while, at the same time, allowing us to judge each bid fairly, thoroughly and on a level playing field.”

The biennial event rotates between Europe and the US, with the UK and Ireland having staged all of the European matches so far apart from in 1997, when Andalusia in Spain was the host.

The 2014 Ryder Cup will take place at Gleneagles in Scotland from September 26-28. In the US, Minnesota’s Hazeltine Golf Club and Whistling Straits in Wisconsin will hold the 2016 and 2020 editions, sandwiching the event’s debut in France in 2018 at Le Golf National in Paris.

The French capital has secured the event following a decision taken by the UWW during the ongoing 2014 World Championships, which commenced on September 8 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and will run through to September 14.

French Wrestling Federation (FFL) president Alain Bertholom said that the event would place a “tremendous” spotlight on wrestling in France for both men and women.

“The organisation of the World Wrestling Championships in Paris will be a major factor in the development of the discipline in the coming years,” he added.

The 2017 World Championships will mark the first time that France will host the combined men’s freestyle, Greco-Roman and women’s freestyle championships.

The Parisian commune of Créteil previously hosted the 2003 men’s Greco-Roman World Championships before wrestling’s disciplines were merged into a unified event in 2005. The US city of Las Vegas will host the 2015 World Championships, with the 2016 event yet to be assigned.

The decision to award the 2017 World Championships comes just days after newly-named global wrestling governing body the UWW elected Nenad Lalovic as its president. Lalovic will serve a six-year term in office having taken over as acting president of the previously-labelled International Wrestling Federation (FILA) last year.

Wrestling’s world governing body voted on Sunday at its regular congress to rebrand the organisation in a bid to encourage new ideas to promote and market the sport following a turbulent period in its recent history.

Lalovic had previously secured wrestling's place on the programme for the Olympic Games after the International Olympic Committee had voted to remove the sport from the event.

The IIHF will make a decision on the respective bids from the Slovak Ice Hockey Federation and Swiss Ice Hockey Federation at its 2015 Annual Congress in Prague during the Czech Republic’s hosting of the national team tournament in May next year.

Slovakia hosted the 2011 World Championship in Bratislava and Kosice and the two cities are at the heart of its latest bid, with the possibility of adding a new multifunctional arena should one be built elsewhere in the country. Bratislava was also a host city when the former Czechoslovakia staged the event in 1959 and 1992.

The Swiss Ice Hockey Federation will announce its bid venues in October. Berne and Zurich-Kloten were its host cities when it last staged the World Championship in 2009 - the eighth time the competition went to Switzerland in its history.

Russia and France/Germany will host the 2016 and 2017 World Championships respectively, while Denmark won a landslide vote in May to serve as host for the first time in 2018. The Scandinavian country had fallen short on two previous occasions.

Denmark’s successful bid will result in Copenhagen and Herning serving as host cities under a proposal that overcame a pitch from the Latvian capital Riga by 95 votes to 12. The latter bid was seeking to hold the tournament at Arena Riga, which was home to the 2006 World Championship.

This year’s IIHF World Championship took place in Minsk, Belarus. The host nation bowed out at the quarter-final stage to bronze-medal winner Sweden, which in turn lost to eventual winner Russia - 5-2 final victors over Finland.

Matches took place at the Minsk Arena and Chizhovka Arena, which had respective capacities of 15,000 and 9,600.