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| Policemen stand guard in front of the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on December 5, 2014 where the International Olympic Committee extraordinary session is taking place |
The
International Olympic Committee on Monday voted to allow Olympic Games to be
hosted by two countries as it started passing sweeping changes to the world's
biggest sporting event.
Unamimous
votes to allow split hosting and reducing the cost of bidding for the summer
and winter Olympics started two days of debate on 40 reforms proposed by IOC
president Thomas Bach.
Bach warned
ahead of the opening of the special IOC session that the body had to transform
itself in order to bolster its credibility.
Bach said
there had to be "important and far-reaching changes in the Olympic
movement" because of a major shift in public attitudes and the world
economy and politics.
"If we
do not address these challenges here and now we will be hit by them very
soon," the IOC chief said.
"If we
do not drive these changes ourselves others will drive us to them."
The first
votes of the special session allowed Olympic Games events to be staged outside
the host city, or country, "notably for reasons of sustainability" or
"geography".
While
sports such as football have traditionally been spread across several venues,
these have been exceptional cases. Bach sought the change to the Olympic
charter to reduce the cost of the Games and to allow smaller countries to make
a bid.
Olympic
cost-cutting
The session
also voted to reduce the cost of bidding by cutting the number of presentations
to be made and making the IOC pay for more of the costs.
The IOC
says it wants bidding to be more of an "invitation" with more talks
with candidate cities on how the event can be made more sustainable. There will
be a new emphasis on using existing and temporary facilities.
It calls on
candidate cities "to present a project that fits their sporting, economic,
social and environmental long-term planning needs" putting a new emphasis
on sustainability.
The meeting
in Monaco will also vote on a proposal to allow an increase in the number of
Olympic sports from the current 28 while capping the number of athletes and
individual disciplines.
Bach will
announce the launch of an Olympic television channel on Monday.
Bach, an
Olympic gold medal winning fencer, has pursued a reform agenda since becoming
president in September 2013.
All 40
proposals are expected to be passed, though questions were asked in the debate
about how the Olympic leadership would preserve the Games
"atmosphere" if events are split.
Bach has
said that once the votes are over, the organisers of the 2018 Winter Olympics
in Pyeonchang, South Korea and 2020 summer Games in Tokyo could be the first
allowed to make changes to to save money and make them more attractive.
Japan wants
baseball and softball brought into the sports list, while Pyeongchang is
looking for ways to save money.
The 2012
London Olympics was widely hailed as a success and the summer Games remains a
huge money earner with US channel NBC paying $7.75 billion for the broadcasting
rights to the next six Games.
Bach said
the IOC had signed $10 billion of sponsorship and television deals in 10 months
this year.
But the
Winter Olympics is slumbering.
Russia
spent more than $50 billion on the Sochi Games this year and there are only two
candidates -- Beijing and the Kazakh city of Almaty -- for the 2022 Games.
Several key
European cities pulled out either because the public voted against their
candidatures in referenda or fears over the costs.
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