"The executive board has
decided that the following cities can continue to the next phase and
become candidates for 2020. In the order of drawing lots: Istanbul,
Tokyo, and Madrid," said IOC spokesman Mark Adams.
The three remaining
candidate cities will enter into Phase 2 of the selection period. Files
from the cities will be submitted to the IOC by January 7, 2013.
Following an official visit by the IOC Evaluation Commission between
February and April of 2013, a report will be made to the 2020 IOC
Evaluation Commission and candidate cities will brief IOC members.
The election of the host
city of the XXXII Olympic Summer Games will take place on September 7,
2013, at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires.
In culling 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 city, the city's compliance with
elements like the World Anti-Doping Code, and other criteria," said
Adams.
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).
The working group also
decided against Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, for its
infrastructural limitations. The "games planning and experience," were
"not sufficiently developed at this stage," according to the report.
Of the five candidate cities, only Tokyo has hosted the Olympics before, in the XVIII Olympiad held in the summer of 1964.
What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of Madrid in this contest? Write more than 200 words.
