International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge said Thursday Tokyo shouldn’t be discouraged from bidding for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games because PyeongChang is hosting the 2018 Winter Games. Rogge pointed out the IOC has no formal opposition to hosting successive Games in the same continent, using Athens in 2004 and Turin in 2006 as examples. He told a press conference “there is a perception that there is an automatic rotation of countries but this is not the case”.
Rogge said during the press conference that North Korea won’t be allowed to co-host the 2018 Games with South Korea. He told reporters, “the IOC awards the Games to one city in one country. As far as spreading venues between the two countries, that’s something we do not consider. We’re not going to change the Olympic Charter because otherwise you complicate the organization”. But he added the North and South would be free to enter a joint team.
The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomed Sochi 2014’s decision to support the non-smoking policy during Sochi 2014 Winter Games, making the Sochi Olympics the twelfth Olympic Games to be free from tobacco smoke with a blanket ban that will protect more than 155,000 athletes, sports delegation representatives, and volunteers, from the harmful effects of smoking. At a working meeting in Sochi attended by representatives of WHO, a framework was set out that states all the Olympic venues in Sochi during the Games and all public areas without exception will become non-smoking territory. The only place that smoking will be permitted during the Games is in specially marked areas outside the Olympic and Paralympic venues. There will also be a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants situated in the Olympic Park, while visitors won’t be able to purchase cigarettes in any of the Olympic venues.
