Okay, given the past behavior of the IOC, perhaps the prediction is not that much of a stretch. However, immediately after announcing who will suffer the winner's curse of hosting the 2012 Olympics, the IOC will hold 28 sequential votes (evidently on the same day) on each of the different sports in the summer program. Failure to win majority support and the sport will be dumped. Twenty eight votes in a row? Sounds like a marathon on C-SPAN.

From this article:

The last sport to be removed from the Olympic Games was polo in 1936.

In 2002 the IOC decided to cap the numbers of sports at an Olympic Games at 28, the number of events at 301 and the number of athletes at 10,500.

At that same session in Mexico City Rogge proposed that baseball, softball and modern pentathlon be dropped, and golf and rugby added.

However IOC members resisted and no vote was taken.

Three years ago the sports earmarked to be dropped were able to rally support and launch campaigns that ultimately saved their status.

With every one of the Olympic sports up for the vote in Singapore there is no obvious target and IOC insiders believe this will make it much harder for vulnerable sports to rally support.

Certainly Rogge remains unsentimental. "It is clear that no sport has an eternal right to be on the Olympic program," he said last week.

Whew. I am glad to see that olympic events do not have rights. For a minute there I was expecting the opposite - after all it is the Olympics.

Yet to claim that there is no obvious target would seem to be a stretch. Swimming, gymnastics, track (most events at least), and basketball are likely safe. The various sports federations want to keep their respective sports in the summer olympics because to do so elevates their sport relative to non-olympic sports, providing psychic or monetary rents. Thus, with no obvious target the uncertainty should increase the overall amount of rent-seeking efforts (lobbying, bribes, etc.).

As one person in the article stated:

There are going to be 28 separate votes, one after the other," one high-ranking official told Reuters. "Will the IOC members really be able to, or be prepared to, concentrate fully on each vote? I'm not so sure. A lot of people are worried and concerned about this vote.

Well, if you line their pockets with a lotta-dolla-bills, I am sure the good folks at the IOC would be able to, indeed would be prepared to, "concentrate fully on each vote." I would be surprised if the vote in July isn't followed by another major scandal within the IOC.