File:117th IOC Bannar.jpg|Banner of the 117th IOC Session outside the venue at
Raffles City File:117th IOC car.jpg|Official car sponsored by
Mercedes-Benz 1 July 2005 An exhibition was launched at the podium of the Raffles City Shopping Complex, that would continue until 10 July.
2 July 2005 The IOC Session commenced.
3 July 2005 The IOC's executive board started two days of meetings.
4 July 2005 The executive board meetings resumed with updates on the progress of preparations for the
2006 Winter Olympics in
Turin,
2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and
2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver by their respective representatives. The board approved Beijing's request to hold the
equestrian events in Hong Kong, which is a separate
NOC from mainland China in the "best interests of the competition and the well-being of the horses".
5 July 2005 The opening ceremony was held at the
Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay and the guest of honour was the Prime Minister of Singapore,
Lee Hsien Loong, who officially opened the session. A special type of hybrid
orchid had been bred to commemorate the IOC Session in Singapore. It was named Vanda IOC. A cultural performance of dance and songs was held with the theme of "One Voice, One Rhythm, One World". The ceremony was attended by IOC members and more than 2,000 other guests, included many foreign leaders (it was the most prolific IOC event in history) : • Commissioner
Adolf Ogi • Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong • President
Jacques Chirac • Prime Minister
Tony Blair • Prime Minister
Mikhail Fradkov • Prime Minister
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero • Former First Lady
Hillary Clinton • Prince
Albert II • Grand Duke
Henri • Crown Prince
Frederik • President
Jacques Rogge and former President
Juan Antonio Samaranch 6 July 2005: 2012 Olympic host city election Each of the five bid cities had 45 minutes to make a final presentation to the IOC members, after which voting commenced and the final results were announced at 19:30 Singapore time. Local sailor
Griselda Khng was handed an envelope by chief scrutineer
Thomas Bach, holding the result of the vote, to give to IOC president
Jacques Rogge, who announced: "The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing, that the games of the 30th Olympiad, in 2012, are awarded to the city of
London." The result of the vote was as follows:
7 July 2005 The final evaluation report of the
2004 Summer Olympics in Athens was presented and the Athens Games were finally closed. Reports on the progress of preparations for future Games were also submitted.
8 July 2005: Review of Olympic sports The 28 sports in the Summer Olympics programme that existed at that time were all put up on the ballots, three years after a similar attempt failed to gain support from IOC members during the 114th IOC Session in
Mexico City. Prior to the voting, baseball, softball,
modern pentathlon,
taekwondo and fencing were considered as most likely to be dropped. Five non-Olympic sports would then be voted to get in, in case any of the existing sports would be dropped, as IOC rules allow a maximum of 28 Summer Olympic sports. These sports – golf,
roller sports,
squash,
rugby and
karate – were recommended by the IOC Olympic Games Program Committee, which has shortlisted the sports that applied to be included. Golf and rugby were considered the favorites to be voted in, both mainly for their popularity and also for their relatively small number of events (each one, if accepted, would have consisted of 2 events). IOC President
Jacques Rogge has been a keen supportive of this move, which was one of his agendas since being elected in 2001, while the
Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) said changing the current set of 28 sports risked changing the "magic combination of team sports and individual sports", attributing one of the success factors of the Olympic games to the current programme. A few days before the votes were cast, the IOC accepted the ASOIF request that the number of votes given for each sport will not be published, only "yay" or "nay". The reason given for the unusual request was in order to avoid a "popularity ranking" of all Olympic sports. Any sport that would get a simple majority of "nay" would be dropped from the Olympic program in 2012, but would remain eligible for readmission in future Games. In the morning IOC members voted to remove baseball and softball from the games