All Eyes Are Now On the IOC

NYC2012 has begun its trek to meet the jury - a group of 115 International Olympic Committee members who will decide if 10 years of plans, hopes, and dreams will finally pay off with a seven-year windfall.

It will all happen at arguably the most important sports gathering in history, the 117th IOC session in Singapore on July 6.The event is so prominent and important that cities had to compete for the hosting rights for this meeting alone.

That's right, a bid to host the bid to host the Olympic Games.

If you still have doubts, consider this: More than 1,500 members of the press will cover the event; it will be attended by almost 5,000 participants comprised of sports and business leaders, heads of state, and royalty from around the globe, and 250 delegates will represent NYC2012.

Prime Minister Blair, President Chirac, and Prime Minister Zapatero will be in attendance as ambassadors for their bids, but they will have to excuse themselves early to attend the G8 summit beginning the following day - an event that will surely pale in comparison.

What about President Bush? The best NYC2012 could do was to arrange for Secretary of State Rice to send off the team as they head to Singapore as part of a photo opportunity yesterday. She was in New York for a U.N. meeting anyway so it wasn't hard to squeeze it into her schedule.

You can probably imagine that at an event of this caliber it takes someone or something very special to impress members of the IOC. We've already seen May or Bloomberg snubbed in Ghana - and it's questionable whether Roland Betts, who was appointed by the president to join the Singapore delegation, will have any significant impact at the IOC session. Someone should have put this on the president's calendar.

At stake will be the gold medal for the biggest event the Olympics has to offer: the bid for the host city franchise and the privilege of being associated with the most powerful brand in the world. There are no silver or bronze medals, but the event will require all of the preparation, dedication, and effort that is required to win traditional Olympic events.

The bid cities must also adhere to strict bidding rules. For example, the IOC, a privately run organization, is able to use its unique power to dictate how bid committees can leverage their high-profile ambassadors while in Singapore. In short, the athletes, celebrities, and politicians can only make appearances at officially approved events. So if Mr. Blair needs to have an impromptu news conference, he'd better not mention London's bid; if team NYC2012 wants to introduce Muhammad Ali to local children, it can't.

If you mix in some of the other "good sports" rules that the IOC is becoming famous for - such as not speaking badly of your bid competitors - you have to wonder what kind of conversations these people will be able to have in the hallways of the Raffles City Convention Centre, where the vote will be held.

Interestingly, while the host city election will be the obvious highlight of the session for the countries involved, it will not be the most important vote held in Singapore next week. In a set of decisions that will first impact the winner of the 2012 Games bid, the IOC will choose whether or not to include each of the 28 current Olympic sports on the Olympic Games program.

This kind of vote has never been held before, and it comes as a result of political wrangling that is keeping unpopular sports in the Olympics and burgeoning sports out. Any sport that fails to receive a simple 50% approval rate will be dropped, leaving a spot for a new sport. Every sport is at risk.

Since this vote will take place after the host city selection, the stakes for a New York bid victory could be even higher. Baseball, considered to be one of the most vulnerable sports in the program, could get an extended Olympic life if New York were to host in 2012.But if the Games go to Europe, it may be the end of gold medals for America's favorite pastime,, and the IOC may instead choose more internationally popular sports such as golf or rugby sevens.

But for the bid team, none of that matters. They need to be focused on the single objective of finding 55 IOC members and convincing them that New York is the place to be in 2012. We'll know if they're successful by this time next week.

Mr. Livingstone is the producer of GamesBids.com.