German public service broadcaster Südwestrundfunk recently obtained this 48-page IOC media kit for Beijing 2008 (or 'One-Year-to-Go Countdown Resource'). Marked CONFIDENTIAL – FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY, it offers an intriguing insight into the way the IOC views itself and its relations with the media, governments and NGOs and protest groups.

The IOC is now a financially robust organisation, having reinforced its position as a key player in the lucrative world of sport. For the 2005-2008 period alone the IOC will receive about $2.5 billion from broadcasters, $866 million from its TOP sponsors' programme, a worldwide sponsorship programme managed by the IOC, plus money from tickets and licensed programmes.

The Host City Contract for the London 2012 Olympics.
This is the non-negotiable contract document prepared by the IOC to be signed by whoever won the bid at Singapore in 2005.
There are a number of detailed technical manuals that accompany it which will be posted when available.

Not since a group of anarchists first started holding meetings has there been such a crisis of faith for a community. Recently, the men in suits of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) proposed turning skateboarding into an Olympic sport for the London Olympics of 2012.

……the International Olympic Committee, …… recently decided to block women ski jumpers from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.

And get this, IOC member and FIS President Gian Franco Kasper told National Public Radio that ski jumping "seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view." What planet is this guy living on? Sure ski jumping is dangerous. But so is downhill racing or luge competition or ski cross.

Marc Hodler, the senior Swiss member of the International Olympic Committee, who in 1998 exposed widespread bribe-taking among the Olympic delegates who decided where the Games would take place, died Wednesday in Bern, Switzerland. He was 87.