The International Olympic Committee announced today that seven cities have submitted an applications to host the 2016 Olympic Games. National Olympic Committees had until Thursday to nominate cities and applications were received from Baku Azerbaijan, Chicago USA, Doha Qatar, Madrid Spain, Prague Czech Republic, Rio de Janeiro Brazil and Tokyo Japan.
First time bidders are Baku and Doha. Chicago bid for the 1952 and 1956 Games and were originally selected to host the 1904 Games before they were moved to St. Louis. Prague bid for the 1924 Games and Tokyo last hosted the Games in 1964.
Both Madrid and Rio de Janeiro were involved in the last bid for the 2012 Olympic Games where Rio missed the short list and Madrid finished fourth in the balloting.
These cities will now begin a Quest that will last almost 25 months ending on October 2, 2009 in Copenhagen Denmark when IOC members vote for their favorite to host the Games.
By October 1, the bids must pay an application fee of USD $150,000 and sign the Candidature Acceptance Procedure contract, then they will begin to prepare an IOC questionnaire response (also referred to as a mini bid book) that is due on January 14, 2008 and will be used to qualify bids for phase 2. The bids will immediately pursue a domestic awareness campaign designed to raise local support for the bid – an important element when the IOC makes their decisions.
On June 8, 2008, the IOC will select a short list of candidates who qualify based on the mini bid books and these bids will embark on phase 2 of the process. This will require a candidature fee of USD $500,000.
The bids will prepare a complete bid dossier due to be submitted January 14, 2009.
During phase 2 the IOC will conduct site evaluation visits to each city and the bids will begin to run international marketing campaigns targeted at IOC members around the world. On September 2, 2009 the IOC will publish an evaluation report on their findings, one month before the final vote in Copenhagen.
