International Olympic Committee elects Peru’s Lima to host its 130th session in 2017

MONTE CARLO, December 9. /TASS/. The Peruvian capital of Lima was selected on Tuesday to host the 130th session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2017. The decision to select Lima was made basing on the results of voting, which took place within the frames of the 127th IOC session in Monaco, running on December 8-9. “Dear friends and colleagues this is the result of the vote,” IOC President Thomas Bach said addressing the session’s participants in Monaco. “Valid ballots 84, majority requested 43. The city of Lima having obtained 54 votes is elected the host of the 130th IOC session.” Finland’s Helsinki was the other candidate city competing with Lima for the right to host the 130th IOC session and the delegations from both countries gave each a 15-minute presentation before the voting was opened. “I would very much like to congratulate the city of Lima and the delegation led by [Peruvian Olympic Committee] President [Jose] Quinones and wish them all the very best in preparations for the session,” Bach added. The 130th IOC session will determine the host for the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, while the next 128th IOC session, which will be held in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur in July of 2015, will decide on the hosting country for the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. The current IOC session in Monaco focused on a number of reformations proposed by Bach, who was elected the IOC president in Argentina in the fall of 2013. Bach in particular proposed to make the Games not only more attractive but affordable for bidding cities as well. The issue of affordability was recently in the limelight after four out of the six bidding cities for the 2022 Winter Games pulled out from the competition leaving only China’s Beijing and Kazakhstan’s Almaty. The 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Russia’s Sochi were the first for Bach in the capacity of the IOC president, after he replaced Jacques Rogge in this post in September of 2013. Read more