Olympic Congress - 21st Century

21st Century

In 2005, the IOC President Jacques Rogge called for the 13th Olympic Congress to be scheduled for 2009. On 8 February 2006, Copenhagen, Denmark was chosen as the host of the 13th Olympic Congress defeating Cairo, Egypt by 59 votes to 40. With this result, no Olympic Congress has ever taken place outside of Europe.

The nine original candidate cities were: Athens (Greece), Busan (South Korea), Cairo (Egypt), Copenhagen (Denmark), Lausanne (Switzerland), Mexico City (Mexico), Riga (Latvia), Taipei (Taiwan) and Singapore. Athens was eliminated in the first round of voting and Riga in the second. Singapore lost a tie-breaker with Taipei in round three. Taipei was eliminated in the following round and Busan in the fifth round. Mexico City dropped out of the running in January 2006, followed by Lausanne a few days before the vote.

The 13th Olympic Congress was held in Copenhagen, Denmark from 3 to 5 October 2009. The theme for the Congress in 2009 was the "Olympic Movement in Society". The 121st Session of the IOC was also held in Copenhagen on 2 October 2009 where the host city of the 2016 Summer Olympics was announced to be Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).

The participants for the 13th Olympic Congress will include IOC members, honorary and honor members; representatives of the International Federations, National Olympic Committees and organising committees of the Olympic Games; athletes and athlete support staff (coaches, doctors and medical staff); referees, judges and technical officials; the IOC’s Olympic partners; and the media. For the first time, members of the general public were invited to participate in the Olympic Congress. The recommendations from the 13th Olympic Congress will be forwarded to the 122nd IOC Session in Vancouver, Canada for adoption.

Preparations for the 13th Olympic Congress in Copenhagen got underway in 2007. In Guatemala City on July 2007, the IOC President Jacques Rogge made an official “call for contributions” to all the members of the Olympic Family. He also announced that - for the first time in the history of Olympic Congresses - the general public would be invited to express their opinions on the discussion themes. In order to facilitate this collection of contributions from the Olympic Family and the general public, the IOC launched the Virtual Olympic Congress.

This website was an important component of the “collection phase” in the preparatory process leading to the 2009 Congress in Copenhagen. The Virtual Olympic Congress was first opened in October 2007 for contributions from members of the Olympic Family. Throughout 2008, all participants were allowed to submit a written contribution, of a thousand words or less, until the collection phase ended on 31 December 2008. A synthesis of the results will be presented to the Congress for consideration. It is hoped that this initiative will help focus the discussions in Copenhagen.

For more information see http://www.olympic.org/en/content/The-IOC/CONGRESS/XIII-OLYMPIC-CONGRESS/.