The 125th IOC Session: Winners Include Tokyo, Wrestling

For the last few days, the International Olympic Committee hosted it's annual IOC Session in Buenos Aires. They made many decisions involving the future of the games. Here is how it all went down.

Tokyo is elected the host of the 2020 Olympics
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Tokyo has been selected as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics. The Japanese city beat out Istanbul and Madrid in the voting. This will be Tokyo's second time hosting the Olympics. It's first time hosting it was in 1964. The only other time Japan has hosted an Olympic Games was the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. They select a host city through voting. All IOC members, except those from a candidate city's country and the IOC president, vote for a country to host the Olympics. The first round had Tokyo getting 42 votes and Istanbul and Madrid both receiving 26 votes. Only two teams make the final round of voting, meaning that Istanbul and Madrid need to have a tiebreaker round. Istanbul edged Madrid 49-45 in the tiebreaker round. Then, in the final round, Tokyo secured the 2020 Olympics, defeating Istanbul 60-36.

Tokyo was the favorite going in and considered a "safe choice". But it did have hurdles to overcome, specifically being close to Fukushima. Fukushima is where the nuclear disaster of 2011 occurred. Tokyo's bid said that the disaster would have no effect on Tokyo or the games. It is too early to see if that is true. 

The 2020 Olympics host vote was not the only major decision made at the 125th IOC Session. The day after the vote for the host, another vote was held, this time on which sport will be added to the program for at least the 2020 and 2024 Olympics. The three sports that were being voted upon were baseball/softball, squash, and wrestling. Wrestling was dropped from the program in February due to the recommendation of IOC. Baseball and softball were dropped from the program in 2005. The last Olympics where baseball and softball competed was in 2008.

The voting for the sport was not even close. Wrestling received 49 votes, baseball/softball got 24 votes, and squash received 22 votes. This was the right decision. Even though I love baseball and I think squash could make it as an Olympic sport, wrestling was the most deserving. It should have never be cut. Not only is it one of the best Olympic sports, it is a big part of the Olympics history. The right move was made. 

Thomas Bach
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The final decision made was about the IOC President. Jacques Rogge's term as president reached it's maximum. He had been the president since 2001. There were six candidates running to succeed Rogge as resident. They were Germany's Thomas Bach, Sweden's Sergey Bubka, Puerto Rico's Richard Carrione, Taiwan's Wu Ching-ko, Singapore's Ng Ser Miang, and Switzerland's Denis Oswald. 

The first round of voting had Bach get 43 votes, Carrione received 23, Bubka got 8, Oswald had 7, and both Ching-ko and Ser Miang received 6 votes. Their was a tiebreaker to see who would make the next round between Ching-ko and Ser Miang. Ser Miang received 56 votes to advance. In the second round, Bach got 49 votes to seal the victory. My favorite fact about Bach is that he won the gold medal in the team foil at the 1976 Summer Olympics. Bach should be a good president.