LIMA, September 15, 2017 – TheInternational Olympic Committee wrapped up what will no doubt be considered ahighly successful 131^st Session in Lima on Friday. Modern Olympichistory was made as two editions of the Games were awarded in one swoop, Agenda2020 was confirmed as a hands down triumph, and the movement was assured that geopoliticaltensions and stray North Korean missiles would not affect the hosting of theupcoming Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang.

IOC Sessions were established to ensure thatthe international boundaries of dialogue and comradery opened during OlympicGames stayed open, and became a point of reference for faster, higher, strongerprogress among the great and good of sports leadership.

More than a century later, the hope is thatrelevant dialogue and knowledge-sharing is still on the Agenda (auto-insert2020) and that it hasn’t been swallowed up by self-preservation, self-interestand self-delusion. There is always something to be learned, passed on, madebetter. So what are some of the things we learn this time?

Whywin once when you can do it three times?

Months before, Lima’s headline act – the awardingof the 2024 Olympic Games – was diluted into a double allocation with no losers,but technically no winners either. The reality though, is that the IOC has achieveda level of stability that’s been badly needed. The last two editions of theGames in Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016 brought with them image crises that the 2022bid race (ultimately gone to Beijing after a lonely two-horse race with Almaty),and the tense lead up to PyeongChang 2018 have done little to mend.

The IOC and the movement needed a win – a glitzybid race and a tried and tested Olympic partner rather than an unruly unpredictableexperiment. Paris and Los Angeles fit the bill perfectly, both offering theirown glamourous Olympic scripts and little to no risk. Choosing just one ran therisk of permanently disillusioning the other. Paris had bid – and lost – three times,for the 1992, 2008 and 2012 Games. Chicago losing out to Rio was still an openwound for the USOC – and the Games’ multi-million broadcast partner NBC. Thus adouble allocation idea snapped up by Bach ensures that good, stable Paris, (securityconcerns aside) doesn’t lose, and the equally assuring privately funded LA bidbid (contentious nation leader aside) pegged back either. Giving the 2028 Gamesto LA before anyone had the time to bid for them, would also easily,victoriously hide the fact that not many might have wanted to bid at all. Finalscore: Paris 2024 1 – LA 2028 1 – IOC 11 years of Summer stability.

2026–What next?

With those two bud races nicely wrapped upand scripts prewritten, minds wandered to Winter Games between them. Who wouldbid for 2026, and would they, in the back of their minds wonder if it meantbidding for the automatic possibility of 2030? The IOC’s change in the biddingprocess confirmed in July included lengthening the invitation phase that putpressure on potential cities to make up their minds  and their conceptions quickly and shorteningthe candidature phase that put financial pressure on bids. The extended handfrom the IOC hoped for more candidates than two and less cities pulling out (fivehaving done so in the race for 2022).

So far, interest for 2026 has been shownfrom Sion (Switzerland), Calgary (Canada), Stockholm (Sweden), and a tentativeMilan (Italy). The question is, how many will be able to convince its citizensand its governments that the Winter Games are something worth paying for – and safelymake it to the official candidature phase in October 2018? And if there areonly two will Thomas Bach re-use the double allocation template?

The IOC President insisted it was earlystages yet.

“[The double allocation] is not a perfectmodel, but a very good one. However, we have not had an opportunity to learnfrom the process yet in order to repeat it for 2026,” Bach said in the IOCSession’s closing press conference.

“By experience, good intention does notmean candidature,” said, adding that it was about waiting to see if the 24/28model worked as it was seeing who would make it towards the finish line for2026.

Nextup – PyeongChang 2018, hopefully

“There is no Plan B. The Games will goahead”, PyeongChang 2018 Organizing Committee President Lee Hee-beom said afterpresenting an update on the Games to the IOC Executive Board. Much of the updatereport would have been centered around convincing the Board that tensions inthe region with North Korea would not affect the staging of the Games set tostart in less than five months’ time. Five days later, North Korea launched itssixth nuclear missile test over northern Japan.

Asked on whether the IOC had plans ofspeaking to leaders in the region, and using the Olympic Games to calm geopoliticalwaters, Bach was clear:

“The last thing the IOC wants is to beinvolved in discussions about nuclear arms.” It might soon have to beinvolved though, as the tensions in the region become more of an active threat to thehosts of the next three editions of the Games – not just PyeongChang but Tokyo2020 and Beijing 2022 as well.