6 cities lodge bids for 2020 Olympics

STEPHEN WILSON

AP Sports Writer

LONDON — Six cities from Europe, Asia and the Mid­dle East are com­pet­ing to host the 2020 Olympics.

Sub­mit­ting bids to the Inter­na­tional Olympic Com­mit­tee by Friday’s dead­line were Rome; Madrid; Tokyo; Istan­bul; Doha, Qatar; and Baku, Azerbaijan.

There were no sur­prises, as all six cities had pre­vi­ously announced their candidacies.

All six con­tenders have made pre­vi­ous bids, and two — Rome and Tokyo— have hosted the Olympics before.

Madrid is bid­ding for a third con­sec­u­tive time, while Tokyo, Doha and Baku are mak­ing their sec­ond suc­ces­sive attempts. It is Istanbul’s fifth over­all bid.

Doha is propos­ing to hold the games in Sep­tem­ber and Octo­ber, out­side the tra­di­tional July-August dates, to avoid the blis­ter­ing sum­mer tem­per­a­tures in the Gulf country.

National Olympic com­mit­tees had until Fri­day to notify the IOC of the names of any appli­cant cities.

The IOC will select the host city by secret bal­lot on Sept. 7, 2013, in Buenos Aires.

The six can­di­dates must first sub­mit detailed appli­ca­tion files and let­ters of guar­an­tee to the IOC by Feb. 15. The IOC exec­u­tive board will meet in May to decide whether to cut any of the cities and approve a list of finalists.

Final bid dossiers will be sub­mit­ted in Jan­u­ary 2013, fol­lowed by vis­its to the cities by an IOC eval­u­a­tion com­mis­sion from Feb­ru­ary to April.

The IOC panel will issue a report assess­ing the tech­ni­cal mer­its of the bids at least one month before the vote. The cities will also make tech­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tions to the IOC ahead of the meet­ing in Buenos Aires.

“Clearly the bids that begin with the most strength are Madrid, Rome and Tokyo, cities that are con­sol­i­dated as three great urban cen­ters,” said Span­ish IOC mem­ber Juan Anto­nio Sama­ranch Jr., son of the for­mer IOC pres­i­dent and a key fig­ure in the Span­ish capital’s candidacy.

Rome, which hosted the 1960 Olympics, was the first of the cities to announce its bid months ago. The Ital­ian cap­i­tal lost to Athens in the race for the 2004 Olympics and hopes to stage the games on the 60th anniver­sary of the ‘60 Games.

Madrid, which has never held the Olympics, mounted unsuc­cess­ful attempts for the 2012 and 2016 Games. The cap­i­tal fin­ished third in the 2012 vot­ing and sec­ond for 2016.

“Madrid has a lot of expe­ri­ence from its two pre­vi­ous can­di­da­tures,” said Span­ish Olympic Com­mit­tee pres­i­dent Ale­jan­dro Blanco. “Its project has already been tested and it’s just about impos­si­ble to improve on it. Now we must develop a cam­paign to reveal all its assets.”

Tokyo, host of the 1964 Games, fin­ished third in the vote for the 2016 Games, which went to Rio de Janeiro. The Japan­ese cap­i­tal wants the 2020 bid to be a sym­bol of the nation’s recov­ery from the March 11 earth­quake and tsunami that left almost 23,000 peo­ple dead or missing.

“I would like to thank mem­bers of the IOC for encour­ag­ing us to move for­ward for the recon­struc­tion from the earth­quake and tsunami dam­age ear­lier this year,” Japan­ese Olympic Com­mit­tee chief Tsunekazu Takeda said in a statement.

“We also appre­ci­ate the IOC mem­bers giv­ing us valu­able input and feed­back on the pre­vi­ous bid for the 2016 Games. Learn­ing from the expe­ri­ences, I am com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing the best pos­si­ble games plan with improve­ments on every aspect.”

Istan­bul is back again after failed bids for the Olympics of 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012.

Doha and Baku both failed to make the short­list of final­ists in the 2016 bidding.

The IOC exec­u­tive board last week agreed to the Qatari city’s request for a Sept. 20-Oct. 20 time frame to avoid the sum­mer heat, when tem­per­a­tures can exceed 40 degrees Cel­sius (104 F).

Qatar has already won the right to host the first foot­ball World Cup in the Mid­dle East in 2022. The event will be held in June, and the desert coun­try has pro­posed air-conditioned sta­di­ums to beat the heat.

Qatar Olympic Com­mit­tee gen­eral sec­re­tary Sheik Saoud Bin Abdul­rah­man called the IOC’s deci­sion to accept the Doha bid “won­der­ful news for the peo­ple of Qatar and the entire Mid­dle East.”

“To have the oppor­tu­nity to host the first ever Games in the Mid­dle East will have a pro­found impact not just on sports devel­op­ment through­out the region, but also in encour­ag­ing a greater bridge between the Mid­dle East and the wider inter­na­tional com­mu­nity,” he said in a state­ment Friday.

Still con­sid­ered a long­shot is the bid from Baku, cap­i­tal of oil-rich Azer­bai­jan. The Azer­bai­jan com­mit­tee said a sta­dium was already being built for the Olympics on the out­skirts of Baku and will be com­pleted by next year.

The United States, South Africa and Dubai also con­sid­ered bid­ding for 2020, but decided not to enter the race.

Posted by AP News on Sep 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.