Having ploughed through 292 pages of so-called "operational requirements", my overriding impression is of the almost unfathomable complexity of a 21st century Olympic Games.

That and the unappealing fussy/bossy tone that such prescriptive documents inevitably convey.

Nor does this amount to the full sum of instructions and stipulations that future host cities will be asked to sign up to.

As you quickly realise when working your way through, the text includes frequent references to various related documents.

The page-count is further kept down through copious recourse to sports administration’s bountiful alphabet soup of acronyms.

There are five pages of them, starting on page seven: all the way from AAA, which I had thought was a minicab company but turns out to stand for Accommodation Allocation Agreement, to WFSGI (World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry) and YOGOC (Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee).

If I were a councillor, official or inhabitant of a city contemplating bidding for the Games, I would think that an hour or two engrossed in this document would stand a good chance of putting me off.

At a time when the IOC is struggling to find credible, tenacious, non-Asian bidders for its second most important property - the Winter Olympic Games - let's just say this does not strike me as much of a referendum winner.

Of course, any franchise owner is well-advised to exercise a certain amount of control over its prize property if it is to safeguard its value.

The IOC also has the rights of its marketing partners to worry about - and, it is true, I saw no reference to "fruit and cakes of the season", leading me to suppose that this new edition of the contract may indeed be considerably less onerous than past versions.

But, but, but…is it really necessary to insist that a host city submit to the IOC for approval (a much-used phrase, as you might imagine) plans to keep even one set of medals for "museum exhibitions and/or archive purposes"? 

Or to require that Organising Committees put in medal boxes "a card advising on how to preserve the medal"? 

Or to assert that, for the Winter Games, "the individual cost of one wax cabin will be defined by the IOC"? 

Scrolling through, the new document does sometimes read like a relic from the good old days, not so long ago, when any self-respecting global city wanted the Olympics, rather than the reduced circumstances of the present when, certainly as far as the Winter Games are concerned, you might think that negotiating power had shifted very significantly in favour of any serious prospective host.

For a journalist such as myself, however, the contract does contain a few glinting nuggets.

I found much of the section on energy fascinating, especially the instruction to ensure that the host city sets up a Games Energy Council, a sort of governing body of electricity, with "the appropriate level of authority to define Games-related energy infrastructure projects, readiness beyond business as usual and manage the timelines for delivery".

My colleagues will be relieved to learn that food and beverages "shall not contain any ingredients of plant or animal origin of any species, including seafood, contained within the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of threatened species".

Meanwhile, I personally was interested to read that "Marketing Partners shall, from 1 January 2021, be the same partners for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games", except for "any Paralympic Games-specific Marketing Partner that may be appointed".

So does that mean that from that date, Olympic TOP sponsors automatically get Paralympic Games rights bundled in? I did not know that.

It was interesting to note that, whereas the Organising Committee pays for the Court of Arbitration for Sport's Games-time office and meeting space, the World Anti-Doping Agency pays its own way.

Precise office and transport requirements for the new International Testing Agency have also been stipulated and written into the contract. 

Games-time per diems for International Sports Federation delegates have been set at $100 (£130/€115).

A minimum of 25 sets of medals are to be provided to the IOC "for archive and reallocation purposes".

Meanwhile, the method used to engrave names in the Wall of Champions which is to be created "shall allow for name changes after the initial set-up of the wall". Now why would that be, I wonder?

It is good to read that the contract calls for a "fans in front" approach to allocating seats closer to the field of play.

Lastly, I was glad to see horse's mouth confirmation among the annexes to the contract that gold medals are actually made of silver. "The medal for first place shall be gilded with at least 6g of pure gold."