How do you organize something as big as 'The Olympics'?
written on: August 12, 2004
This is a very important question for management people. And a lot is to be learnt everytime such events happen. Studying events like Olympics can help us understand the way people form a committee or forum where they decide on events, or the way people coordinate between each other coming from different cultures, the problems of language, the problems of skill, and so on.
The International Olympics Committee is the body which coordinates the idea of olympics with the hosts. And in clear terms they call it 'The Olympic Movement' rather than an organization or a company. The committee is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that works in partnership with various sports associations and similar movements.
As said, the IOC is,
* Non-governmental (so no biasing)
* Non-profit (so no commercialization intended other than promoting the olympic movement itself)
The IOC organizes the event with a simple idea:
--Vote a host,
--Get into an agreement with the host for maintaining the committee's interests and policy of the event,
--Allow the host to plan and organize the event at his cost,
--Help the host in getting all resources for hosting the event.
--Supervise and monitor the process, while checking whether the agreement is breached.
And this explains how the IOC has been successful in the whole process (at least satisfactorily, respecting the scale of the event), organizing the event everytime in different coutries, different cultures, and with a totally different event schedule and plan..."Everytime".
And if you thought that was great.. The IOC hosts the Winter Olympics also once in 4 years, and the Paralympics (for the disabled) also every 4 years. While the Paralympics happen just a few months after the normal Olympics (for example Athens Olympics 2004), the Winter Olympics happen two years after this olympics.
That means,
2004 Athens Olympics (in August)
2004 Athens Paralympics (in September)
2006 Torino XXth Winter Olympics
2006 Torino Winter Paralympics
2008 Beijing Olympics
: :
: :
 |  |  |
| TORINO 2006 | BEIJING 2008 | VANCOUVER 2010 |
Read more : (click link below for the following)
1. The Paralympics Comittee,
2. The event hosting process, and
3. References made for making this blog entry.
The Paralympics committee
There is a separate committee for the Paralympic Games, but historically both the Olympic Committee and this committee are working together (in official terms, atleast from 2002 they are working together.. You might want to read more details here)
The event hosting process
The core decision-making process of the olympic committee happens when they sit to select the host.
Every willing host proposes to the committee in the spirit of organizing the event rather than lobbying with money, and the members of the committee are so diverse in values and spirit that they subject each proposal to huge debates based on the host's capacity to various factors like funding the event, planning the event, providing security, handling risks, and more importantly how they can keep the spirit of the games and IOC's interests.
For example, the next olympics is to be hosted in China.. but this is not the first time China wished to host the Olympics. China's candidacy met with fierce opposition from various quarters. The country's human rights record in particular was mentioned most often as a reason for not honoring Beijing. In 1993 China was not voted considering human rights issues, and, In 1989 it was the repression of the student demonstrations that year. Similar issues constituted for China's loss to Sydney(Australia) to organize the 2000 Olympics also.
After all that China successfully convinced the committee now, and on 13 July 2001, the International Olympic Committee voted for Beijing to host the Olympics in 2008.
While Athens is all set for tomorrows Olympics (13th August 2004), beijing is already planning infrastructure developments, security training, and language training for hosting the Olympics in 2008.
What amazes me the most is.. the interest the IOC is successfully able to put into the minds of the host. Such interest... that the hosting country's government and related organizations start work four years in advance for the event.. and sometimes even earlier.
This is something that can be accounted to only the capacity of the International Olympic committee, and the influencial powers of the members of the committee. Sure enough there's a strong personality from every country who is a member of the International Olympic Committee.
References:
The Olympic Movement -Home
The Olympic Movement - The Organization
Beijing Olympics 2008
Content Copyrights Harish Palaniappan.
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