IOC Executive Board Won’t Be Quite as Detailed With Minutes

The International Olympic Committee announced Tuesday that it will immediately adopt a new system of taking and distributing the confidential minutes from its policy-making Executive Board meetings.

Speaking at the IOC’s general assembly, President Jacques Rogge said the new system would provide members and others with a more “synthetic” record of the proceedings, one that simply summarizes discussions that were held and decisions taken.

The current minutes provide a thorough summary of what was said, who said it and what decisions, if any, were made.

Under the new protocol, a verbatim record of the proceedings will be kept in Olympic archives in Lausanne, Switzerland, IOC Director General Francois Carrard said. By contrast, the general assemblies, called IOC “sessions,” have been televised since 1999 on closed-circuit television and can be viewed by the public and press.

Carrard said the change to a far-less revealing system of minutes had been under study for weeks. The new system, he said, is “like many boards have.”

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Alan Abrahamson