For decades an Olympic host was chosen by a vote of the IOC Session, seven years before the Games, after a bidding contest between candidate cities. All three parts of that sentence have been replaced.
What was approved, and when
- June 2019 — the Session approved the creation of Future Host Commissions, permanent bodies for the Summer and Winter Games respectively.
- October 2019 — the Executive Board set out the action plan for how the commissions work in practice.
Two kinds of dialogue
- Continuous dialogue — open, non-committal conversations with any interested party: a city, a region, a country, or several together. No bid, no deadline, no fee, no commitment, and no competitor to beat.
- Targeted dialogue — the Executive Board invites one interested party, or occasionally more, into a focused process. An invitation into targeted dialogue is the real decision point, and it is taken by the Executive Board, not by the Session.
The Session still elects the host. By the time it does, the field has usually been narrowed to a single party, which is why the ballot has stopped being the news.
The seven-year rule is gone
The requirement that a host be elected seven years before the Games no longer applies. The commissions may recommend, and the Session may elect, a host much earlier — or for two editions at once. The practical consequence is that a party with a credible plan can be awarded the Games a decade out, while a late-emerging competitor has nothing to compete in.
What the reform was for
Bidding contests were expensive, and the losers paid for them with nothing to show. Several cities withdrew mid-contest after referendums, and the number of candidates for Winter editions in particular collapsed. A process without a contest removes the cost of losing, because there is no contest to lose. The money the movement redistributes to committees runs through a different channel entirely and is not affected by who hosts — the split is in the entry on Olympic Solidarity.
The criticism, stated fairly
The same feature that removes the cost removes the competition. A single invited party negotiates without an alternative on the table, and the moment of real choice moves from a recorded vote of the full Session to an Executive Board decision about whom to invite. Transparency about criteria becomes the only check, which is why the obligations written into the contract the host then signs matter more than they used to — those are described in From Host City Contract to Olympic Host Contract.
Where this is written: the Olympic Charter and the IOC Executive Board action plan on the new approach to future host elections, olympics.com/ioc/host-city-election.