IOC inaugurates new Lausanne headquarters

Lausanne - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Sunday opened its new headquarters, built on its previous site in the Swiss city of Lausanne.

IOC president Thomas Bach inaugurated the new building in front of several hundred invited guests.

"On this very day, 125 years ago, on the 23rd of June 1894 at the University of Sorbonne in Paris, Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee and revived the Olympic Games. He saw this as a way to promote peace among nations and people," said Bach.

The ceremony was opened by American soprano Barbara Hendricks, who sang a version of John Lennon's "Imagine".

Olympic House, with a floorspace of 22,000m2 compared to the previous 5,000m2, was constructed at a cost of 145 million Swiss francs (128m euros) and will house some 500 IOC employees who were split around four sites.