Her Excellency Yvette Lambin-Berti, general secretary of the Monaco Olympic Committee (COM), told insidethegames at the Sportel Convention, currently taking place here, that she thought the much-anticipated gathering on December 8 and 9 would attract some 750 Olympic family members and up to 250 journalists.

The Extraordinary Session will be the biggest moment yet for Thomas Bach's year-old IOC Presidency.

It will be the forum at which the final approval of IOC members is sought for far-reaching reform proposals on bidding, the Olympic sports programme, a new Olympic TV channel and other matters.

The Fairmont Hotel is set to be the main centre for the Olympic Family during the International Olympic Committee Extraordinary Session in December ©Fairmont Hotel

As such it will mark the culmination of the critical first phase of Bach's reformist Olympic Agenda 2020 initiative.

The need for bidding reform, particularly insofar as the Winter Games is concerned, has been highlighted by the severely underpowered race for the 2022 Games, which is now down to just two runners - Almaty and Beijing - after the withdrawal of Oslo.

Lambin-Berti said that the Session - which will be held on December 8 and 9, and preceded by a three-day Executive Board meeting - would take place in the Grimaldi Forum, with the Fairmont Monte Carlo expected to serve as the IOC hotel.

She indicated that a gala evening would probably be held at the Sporting d'Eté, a complex whose 1974 inauguration was graced by a performance by Josephine Baker.