THE IOC voted yesterday to take its thirteenth Olympic Congress to Copenhagen instead of Cairo in a decision that drew inevitable parallels with the geopolitical situation that has pitted Denmark against the Islamic world after the publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
IOC members, meeting here before the Winter Olympics, decided by 59 votes to 40 to award the prestigious event in 2009 to the Danish capital in the final round of voting after the elimination of Athens, Riga, Singapore, Taipei and Busan. The congress is largely considered to be little more than a talking shop where the evolving relevance of the Olympic Games and their development are discussed. The last one was held in Paris in 1994, to mark the modern Olympic movement’s centenary. But it is a lucrative opportunity for a city to market itself as a tourist destination and welcome more than 7,000 Olympic delegates to its restaurants and hotels.
The furore over the cartoons in a Danish newspaper has prompted Denmark to pull out of two table tennis tournaments to be held in Qatar and Kuwait next week after violent protests in the region. The national association said that it would not risk the lives of its players. The Denmark football team are also considering cancelling an exhibition game in Israel next month.
The IOC’s decision not to take its congress out of Europe for the first time offered a timely boost to Denmark. “It is no secret that it is dark at the moment on the international scene. This could be a very small light,” Martin Geertsen, the mayor of Copenhagen, said. “I have spoken to a lot of people back home and they are all very proud. We had the best bid. Copenhagen and Denmark needs this.”
But it also represented a snub to the Islamic world and there were some rumblings of unhappiness from Arab nations on the fringes of the IOC session here. Egypt, which is hosting football’s African Cup of Nations, believed it had a good case for hosting the congress. The IOC denied that the outcome of the vote had been politically driven. “This was a decision about a sports congress,” a spokeswoman said. “It was closely fought between many countries and Copenhagen was the winner.”
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Kai Holm, president of the Danish National Olympic Committee, echoed the IOC’s position. “This has nothing to do with what’s happening outside in the real world,” he said.