The International Olympic Committee will hold its 125th Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 7. One of the items on the agenda in addition to electing the new president of the IOC will be to decide which of three candidate cities will get to host the 2020 Summer Olympics.
The three finalist cities vying to snag the bid are Tokyo, Madrid, and Istanbul. They delivered their final presentations to the IOC in Lausanne, Switzerland on July 3-4 and will get one final chance to sway the delegates their way at that September 7 meeting in Argentina.
The three host committees along with their national leaders will be nervously watching on that date as the assembled IOC delegates vote to see which candidate city gets an absolute majority of votes and will be signing the coveted 'Host City Contract' to organize and stage the Games.
The frontrunner to host the 2020 Games is considered to be Tokyo. This is Tokyo's fifth Olympic bid overall and its second consecutive one after being eliminated in the second round of bidding for the 2012 Games. If this one is successful it would become the fourth city to host the Summer Olympic Games twice.
Tokyo won the right to host the 1940 Summer Games that were cancelled by World War II. It bid for the 1960 Games but was eliminated on the first ballot but successfully won the right to host the 1964 Olympic Games, becoming the first Asian city to do so.
The 1972 and 1998 Winter Games were hosted in Sapporo and Nagano in addition to those 1964 Summer Games, so Japan has been there done that when it comes to Olympic hosting experience. It also hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the 2006 FIBA men's World Basketball Championships, the 2011 Gymnastics World Championships and the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Tokyo also scored highly on the IOC Evaluation Committee reviews and there is enough of a time separation since the Asian-Pacific region last hosted a summer games (Beijing 2008) to make it a front running candidate along with sentiment in the wake of the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami to bring the Games there. It is also regarded as a safe and secure city in comparison to its finalist rivals.
The fact the $4.8 billion budgeted for the Games is sitting in the bank along with a compact Olympic venue plan in which the competition venues are within 8km of the Olympic village with the exception of the football prelims are other pluses in their favor.
Soft public support for the Tokyo bid is one negative that people are throwing at it although that support has continued to rise since the London Games concluded. 73% of Tokyo residents and 86% of Japan now support the bid and it has the backing of Tokyo's mayor and the Japanese government.
Controversy erupted when Tokyo 2020 Chairman Naoki Inose made a shady comment interpreted to be about Istanbul's bid when he was quoted as saying, “Well, compare the two countries where they have yet to build infrastructure, very sophisticated facilities. So from time to time, like Brazil, I think it’s good to have a venue for the first time. But Islamic countries, the only thing they share in common is Allah and they are fighting with each other and they have classes.”
Criticizing another candidate city's bid is against IOC rules and Tokyo 2020 quickly went into damage control mode. In addition to Tokyo 2020's statement reiterating they "have the utmost respect for all candidate cities and have always taken pride in bidding in a spirit based on the Olympic values of excellence, respect and friendship,” Inose apologized for the comment a few days later.
How much that comment will affect the IOC votes Tokyo gets in Buenos Aires has yet to be determined since as Chicago painfully found out, ranking very highly on the site evaluations and being considered the frontrunner doesn't necessarily guarantee you'll get the Games, especially in a body as political as the IOC.
Madrid is attempting its third consecutive bid (and fourth overall) to host the Games. It lost to Munich in the final round of voting to host the 1972 Games, was knocked out of the third round of voting for the 2012 Games that London eventually beat out Paris for in the final round and lost to Rio de Janeiro in the final round of voting for the 2016 Games.So Madrid feels it's due. Madrid like Tokyo also has a compact venue plan with the exception being the sailing events held in Seville and football prelims would be held in various Spanish cities. The bid has national (84%) and citywide (75%) support. Barcelona hosted the 1992 Games, and Spain will host the upcoming 2014 FIBA World Cup of Basketball with Madrid being one of the host venue cities. Madrid's Mayor Ana Botella and the Spanish government also support bringing the games here.
The negatives affecting the bid is Madrid will have to build six new venues and two temporary ones out of the 36 needed. They will have to upgrade other ones in the midst of a Spanish economic crisis.
Since London already hosted the 2012 Games, the IOC usually likes some time separation before it returns to a continent.. Only eight years will have elapsed between the time of the 2012 Games and the 2020 ones, but people supporting Madrid's Olympic bid can point out there was only eight years separation between the 1976 Montreal Games and the 1984 LA ones on the North American continent.
Istanbul is the third candidate city finalist. It has yet to host a Games but has made four previous bids. It was one of five candidate cities vying for the 2000 Games but was eliminated in the first round of voting. It failed to become a candidate city for the 2004 and 2012 Games, and finished fourth in both rounds of balloting for the 2008 Games that were held in Beijing. Istanbul's bid is proposing to host the Games from Friday, August 7 to Sunday, August 23, 2020. It is playing up the fact the city is on the Asian and European continents, is new Olympic territory and if selected would be the first time the Games would be hosted in a predominately Muslim nation.
It was voted the number one city in Europe by the international travel magazine Travel & Leisure for its 2013 'World's Best Awards', and recently completed the Marmaray Rail Tunnel underneath the Bosporus strait that will open in October as part of a major expansion of Istanbul Metro's rail system.
It does have high level international sport hosting experience. Istanbul hosted the knockout phase and the final of the 2010 FIBA men's World Basketball Championships with Turkey set to play host next year to the FIBA women's World Basketball Championships. It has also hosted the 2001 EuroBasket final and the 1992and 2012 Euroleague finals in addition to having a bid in for the 2002 Euro 2020 football tournament.
The Istanbul bid also have the support of the Turkish governement and the city of Istanbul.
But the protest in Taksim Square that beamed photos around the world of Turkish police violently beating down peaceful protestors, anti-trans violence, getting called out by IAAF president Lamine Diack about doping issues and a negative IOC Evaluation Committee report have started to impact the momentum that was building toward Istanbul winning the 2020 Games bid.
All three candidate cities cities have bids with strengths and weaknesses and we really won't know until September 7 which city wins the right to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.
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