Six Applicant Cities for the 2020 Olympic Games

For now I think I'll be pulling for Tokyo, but that may be a difficult bet with the 2018 Winter Games being held in South Korea just two years prior. Who knows though, anything is possible at this point!


From the IOC Press Release:

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is pleased to announce that six cities have been put forward by their respective National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to apply to host the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in 2020. The cities, in alphabetical order, are: Baku (Azerbaijan), Doha (Qatar), Istanbul (Turkey), Madrid (Spain), Rome (Italy) and Tokyo (Japan).

NOCs had until 1 September 2011 to notify the IOC that a city within their jurisdiction was interested in applying. In addition, all of the above NOCs/cities complied with the newly introduced prerequisite criteria established by the IOC Executive Board (EB) in October 2010.
The six Applicant Cities will now proceed to Phase 1 of the IOC’s two-step procedure, which will lead to the election of the 2020 host city in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 7 September 2013.

• Phase 1, known as the Candidature Acceptance Procedure, focuses on a technical review and the cities’ ability to host the Olympic Games in 2020. Cities are required to answer a questionnaire, and their answers are studied by the IOC. At the end of this first phase, the IOC EB selects the cities that will become Candidate Cities and therefore move on to Phase 2.

• Phase 2, known as the Candidature Procedure, concentrates on Games operational matters. Candidate Cities will be requested to submit their Candidature File – which is an in-depth description of their Olympic project – and will be subject to a technical assessment made by a visiting team – the IOC Evaluation Commission. The IOC Evaluation Commission’s appraisal will be published in a report and sent to the IOC members no later than one month before they cast their votes on 7 September 2013 and in time for the 2020 briefing for IOC Members. The report will also be available to the public on www.olympic.org.

USOC Announces It Will Not Bid on 2020 Games

I find this news extremely frustrating. The USOC can't get it's act together enough to allow an interested city to bid on the 2020 games. According to ESPN:

The U.S. Olympic Committee has notified all interested cities that it will not submit a bid to host the 2020 Olympics, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Monday.   

Chicago, New York and Dallas were among those that had expressed interest in putting forth a bid to host the games, but any bid was contingent upon the USOC working out a long-simmering revenue-sharing deal with the International Olympic Committee.

It feels like more and more the USOC has become the "Anti-Olympic" committee. I really hope they can get it together and resolve this soon. With South Africa and the US officially out of the running it looks like the remaining contenders are Rome, Tokyo, Istanbul, and Madrid.

Rome beats out Venice as Italy's candidate for 2020 Summer Games Bid

Rome was selected over Venice by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) Wednesday as Italy's candidate for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.

Venice was eliminated because the bid did not fulfill the necessary criteria. According to a CONI report "Venice would not reach the points threshold laid down by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)".

Reuters reports Venice's bid had romantic appeal but very few of the events would have taken place in the city. Bid organizers planned on using the neighboring cities of Treviso and Padua as part of the proposal to regenerate the area.

Rome hosted the 1960 Games and lost to Athens in the voting for the 2004 Games.

Rome proposes a budget of $61 million (U.S.) with a bid that includes 70 per cent of already existing venues. The bid is centred around two central areas, the Foro Italico that was the centre of the 1960 Games and features the 80,000-seat Stadio Olimpico, and a new sports centre in Tor Vergata on the outskirts of Rome, now under construction.

The IOC will decided in 2013 who will host the 2020 Summer Games. Via GamesBids.com