(ATR) IOC President Thomas Bach held a press conference in Lillehammer on Friday ahead of the opening ceremony of the Youth Olympic Games.
A number of topics not related to the event at hand did come up, including the bid for the 2024 Games.
Asked if Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, had been warned not to come to Lillehammer, Bach said: "There is no ban here [on 2024 bids]. We have the regulations and you know very well that we want to make bidding as least expensive for bidding cities as possible. Therefore, in the context of Olympic Agenda 2020, the presence of candidate cities in different events and the opportunity to make presentations has been drastically reduced."
Bach was next asked about his concerns and expectations for Beijing 2022, given the lack of an ice and snow culture in the area. Noting that the organizing committee was formed in December, he said he will soon announce the composition of the IOC coordination commission "and then the work will start."
Bach said he was very happy to see photos in November showing 40 centimeters of snow on the future ski slopes of the Games. "This may have made some people in other continents a little bit jealous," he said, "but I think it was a very good signal that after the election of Beijing, the snow was already coming in the right time."
The Zika virus also elicited a question. Although some athletes, including U.S. soccer star Hope Solo, have expressed concerns about traveling to Rio if exposure to the Zika virus could harm their chances of giving birth to a healthy baby, Bach said, there is no intention by an NOC to "pull out from the Rio Games."
He said the IOC is "taking this question very seriously, together with the NOCs, together with the World Health Organization and the National Olympic Committees in turn are in contact with their national health authorities."
He stressed that the WHO has not issued a travel ban and said experts agree that the timing of the Games in the Brazilian wintertime will lead to fewer mosquitoes.
"We have full confidence in all the many actions being undertaken by the Brazilian and international authorities and health organizations," he said. "We’re also very confident that the athletes and the spectators will enjoy safe conditions in Rio de Janeiro."
Refugee Efforts
Bach has been proactive in the approach the IOC is taking to the refugee crisis. He recently visited a refugee camp in Greece and will meet with refugees on Saturday at the cross country venue.
"This is particularly important here with this Youth Olympic Games," Bach said. "This refugee crisis will not be solved by our generation; this is a challenge of such a magnitude that it will have to solved by this next generation of young leaders."
Bach said the IOC is supporting sports facilities and sports programs in many refugee camps around the world and promoting peace-building. "One of our colleagues coming back from a refugee camp, visiting Kenya, there were 185,000 refugees from very different backgrounds living together in one camp.There you can imagine, this is not without tensions for many reasons. Sports can do a lot to ease these tensions."
Norway is one of 15 NOCs benefitting from a $2 million emergency fund established a couple of months ago to help refugee athletes continue to train and pursue their Olympic dream, Bach said. The NOCs and the United Nations’ refugee agency will help identify them as Olympic candidates.
"The IOC will not only help them like many others with scholarships and training and other means," Bach said, "but we will invite them as a refugee team to the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro. We will welcome them among the other 206 national Olympic teams in the Olympic Village as a team with the Olympic anthem. We will have them marching into the stadium in the Opening Ceremony behind the Olympic flag and we’ll have them participating on an equal standard and level with all the other athletes of the world."
For Bach's comments on the Youth Olympic Games, click here.
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Reported in Lillehammer by Karen Rosen
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