The Olympic Bids - Some Simple Truths

[TheBigotBasher]

Chicago got the US Olympic Committee nod. It had a better plan and was in 2007, when the Candidate Cities were shortlisted, the most technically competent bid.

Of the Candidate Cities, Madrid had much to do to convince the IOC that a European City should be awarded the Olympics twice in a row (London 2012). That has never happened before.

The US bid was technically the strongest, in terms of planned finances, infrastructure and support (launched in the Bush years - the Democratic Party did not run down an American bid), but a McCain sponsored Act that forbid taxpayer money being used to guarantee the Olympics raised questions about finances. The US has also held the Olympics more often than any other Country, so any bid from the US would have had to have been really special. In addition, during the IOC "testing period", this did not help.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7036928.stm

Tokyo had transport and security issues, however their bid was to "urbanise" the Olympics and have the Olympic Village right in the heart of Tokyo was seen as groundbreaking and as a result was seen as the strongest on technical grounds.

No South American nation has ever hosted the Olympics, but Rio's application was on the back of successful Pan-American Games hosted in the summer of 2007.

Doha was excluded as a candidate City because it wanted to hold the Olympics in October (to mitigate the heat).

The bids from Prague and Baku did not have resident support and were considered weak.

All Candidate Cities had upped their game for the final shortlist, that is why their Heads of State attended.