The IOC Evaluation Commission released a 110-page report Tuesday detailing the three potential host cities for the 2020 Olympics - Tokyo, Istanbul, and Madrid - and looking at everything from the city’s vision for the Games, to safety and security, finances, transportation, and media operations.
“The Evaluation Commission made sure to produce a report that we feel is an accurate, objective, and fair assessment of each of the three Candidate Cities,” Commission Chairman Sir Craig Reedie said of the evaluation process.
“We are indeed very pleased with the quality of each bid and it is clear that the IOC members will have a difficult choice to make this September in Buenos Aires.”
The Commission visited the three cities for four days each this past March before writing their up their official report, which the full IOC membership will pore over before the 2020 Candidate Cities Briefing at the IOC Headquarters in Lausanne on July 3 and 4. Then the group will meet again on September 7 in Buenos Aires to hear the cities presentations before a final vote.
And while this process officially started back in May 2011 when the IOC asked for its national organizations to nominate hosts for the Games, for some Olympic officials this process dates all the way back to the late 1980s: this Istanbul’s fifth bid for the Olympics in the last six cycles.
