Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo are three remaining candidates among 5 bidders to host the 2020 Olympic Games as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Canada’s Quebec City decided on Wednesday.
IOC executive board in Quebec City decided Wednesday in Qubec that Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo are the final candidates on to the shortlist of cities bidding to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. Baku and Doha were rejected for the second time in a row after failing to host the 2016 Olympics. The race to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games will now be three-way battle between Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid after Qatar’s Doha and Azerbaijan’s Baku were left out as candidates.
‘ The International Olympic Committee executive board has decided that the following cities can continue to the next phase and become candidates for 2020 Olympics. In the order of drawing lots: Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo declared IOC spokesman Mark Adams.
2020 Olympic Games : Istanbul and Tokyo are firm favourites to host the Olympic Summer Games
The three remaining candidate cities to host Olympic Games 2020 will enter into Phase 2 of the selection period. Files from the 3 cities will be submitted to the IOC by January 7, 2013. The report will be handed to the 2020 IOC Evaluation Commission and candidate cities will brief IOC members after an official visit by the IOC Evaluation Commission between February and April of 2013 conducted.
The election of the host city of the 2022 Olympic Summer Games will take place on September 7, 2013, at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires. The IOC will declare then the winner between bids from Tokyo (Japan), Madrid (Spain) and İstanbul (Turkey).
In decreasing the field from five to three cities, the IOC executive board relied on application files, the report of a working group of experts which is formed to assess the application forms of each candidate city, the city’s compliance with elements like the World Anti-Doping Code, and other criteria explained Mr Adams.
Rejected bids of 2020 Olympics candidate cities Baku and Doha and its reasons
Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, had proposed changing the games to October 2-18, to mitigate the extreme temperatures athletes would have to experience during the usual July-August summer games. Based on a 10-year average, Doha temperatures in October range from 30 to 36 degrees Celsius (86 to 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Doha, which was proposing to hold the 2020 Olympics in October rather than the usual July/August schedule to avoid the Gulf Arab state’s searing summer heat, is already hosting the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament.
The capital of Azerbaijan, Baku ‘s bid has also been rebuffed for its infrastructural limitations. The “games planning and experience,” were “not sufficiently developed at this stage,” the report justifies. Baku, which invested more than a billion dollars in sports venues in the past 10 years, was bidding for a second successive time after falling at the first hurdle for the 2016 Games.
Notable Olympic Games’ host
Of the five candidate cities, only Tokyo has hosted the Olympics before, in the XVIII Olympic Games took place in the summer of 1964.
Rome pulled out of the running in February due to Italy’s efforts to head off a debt crisis.
London will host the 2012 Summer Games from July 27-Aug 12 for the 3rd time, while the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro will stage the 2016 Olympics.
Three cities have hosted the Summer Olympic Games more than once; Athens (1896 and 2004 Summer Olympics), London (1908 and 1948 Summer Olympics) and Los Angeles (1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics).
