November 17 - International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge has cancelled a planned trip here to attend the debrief on London 2012, where a transfer of knowledge will take place between them and organisers of Rio 2016.

Rogge's doctors have advised him not to take such a long flight following his hip replacement surgery in September.

Rogge will instead remain in Lausanne to oversee the clear-up of the IOC's headquarters after they had to evacuate it on Monday (November 12) following a burst water pipe which flooded the building. 

Besides Rio, the four day debriefing will see key staff from London 2012 sharing their knowledge and experiences with representatives from Sochi 2014, Rio 2016, Pyeongchang 2018 and the three candidate cities for 2020, Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo. 

It is part of the Olympic Games Knowledge Management, which was created in the build-up to Sydney 2000.

The debriefing, which is taking place in the Barra district of Rio where most of the venues for 2016 are located, will look at all of the principal areas of organising the Games and will give the various participants an opportunity to exchange ideas with each other after having had time to digest the results of London 2012.

Earlier this week a technology-specific debriefing was held and will be followed by an event looking at the Paralympic Games.

"One of the main roles that the IOC plays in helping to organise the Games is providing the Organising Committees and their partners with access to the latest knowledge and experiences from the Olympics," said Gilbert Felli, the IOC's Olympic Games Executive Director.

"We do this throughout the year with our Olympic Games Knowledge Management Programme but the Official Games debriefing, along with the observer and secondee programmes at Games time, are invaluable to the host cities.

"They allow them to get the latest experience and lessons from the people who have just done the job, and this immediate knowledge transfer is consistently praised by the cities as being very beneficial to their planning."

More than 500 people, including London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe and Rio 2016 President Carlos Nuzman, are expected to attend the event, which is due to officially begin tomorrow morning with a session on "Vision Development and Implementation".

The debrief is due to cover a number of different areas, including culture, media operations, ceremonies, the Olympic Torch Relay, sport, National Olympic Committee and International Federation services, workforce, venues, and commercial programmes. 

The debrief is being held less than two months after Rio 2016 sacked nine employees for illegally downloading files from London 2012 during the Olympics when they were on secondment. 

Both sides claim that the incident has not soured relations between them and will not affect this week's meetings.
By Duncan Mackay at the Windsor Barra Hotel in Rio de Janeiro
Source: www.insidethegames.biz