117th IOC Session - Media Confusion

Media Confusion

There was some kind of confusion by the foreign newspapers mixing up the high-end Raffles Hotel with the Raffles City. Reuters wrote "It is a national monument, the jewel in Singapore's crown, and this week, Raffles Hotel will becoming a bubbling cauldron of lobbying and politics as it stages the most keenly contested Olympic venue vote in the history of the Games. Its Colonial style salons and parlours will be overrun by bid officials and consultants, celebrities and spin-doctors." Later, it clarified that the vote was actually at the adjacent Raffles City Convention Centre and not the hotel.

British paper, The Guardian, in a report on the London team isolating themselves on Sentosa wrote, "They have deliberately retreated from the hothouse atmosphere of the Raffles Hotel complex, the venue for the IOC congress, to perfect a final pitch they believe will be crucial in gathering the votes London requires to win."

The Weekend Australian reported, "First order of the business that day at Raffles Hotel will be determining whether any changes are to be made to the Olympic programme......" The Bangkok Post said, "Members of the International Olympic Committee from around the globe will meet 6 July-9 July at the historic Raffles Hotel to pick the hosts of the 2012 Games of the Olympiad."