The city able to generate the most revenues will not necessarily win the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, IOC president Jacques Rogge said yesterday.
The BBC reports that Rogge said the IOC would also not make its decision based on geographical rotation, but that athlete care was the highest priority and a “sustaining legacy” would trump economic considerations.
“I share the view...the economics should not drive our decision,” Rogge told reporters the day before the four cities in the running – Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Madrid, Chicago – make their penultimate pitches to the IOC. “In the past we did not necessarily go for the richest city and I believe we were right not to do that.
“First of all is the care for the athletes. The games are for the athlete... not for any other superior goal…
“I am not fond of geo-political considerations. It is not the economics but leaving a sustaining legacy.”
Rogge also said the activities of heads of state, who have played a strong role in securing bidding rights in the past, will be contained “to what has been agreed by the ethics commission”.
