The host city for the 2020 summer Olympics and Paralympics will be chosen in Buenos Aires this weekend. Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid are the contenders in a secret ballot that will be announced at 21:00 BST on Saturday.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) members will also decide which one of squash, baseball/softball (joint bid) or wrestling will be added to the Olympic Games programme in 2020. A new IOC president will also be chosen to replace the outgoing Jacques Rogge.
The three cities battling it out to win the vote in Argentina to stage the 2020 Games are all struggling to overcome negative aspects that could torpedo their bids.
Istanbul 2020 suffered a setback from political protests this summer – some at proposed Olympic venues – and also a series of doping scandals.
The Madrid candidacy has struggled to deal with the issue of the Spanish economy, with high unemployment and workers having to endure pay cuts.
The Spanish capital’s response has been to focus its bid on proposing a low-cost, austerity Olympics, using many existing venues and spending around a quarter of the money that went on staging the London 2012 Games. Tokyo 2020 is considered slight favourite, but has also suffered a blow in recent weeks with fresh concerns over the leak of radioactive material from the Fukushima nuclear plant. It has reacted by sending a letter to all IOC members seeking to allay fears about Fukushima.
Mike Lee, the head of Vero Communications who worked on the successful Olympic bids for London, Rio de Janeiro (2016) and Pyeongchang (winter – 2018), believes there is still all to play for. He said: “All the bid teams have been forced onto the defensive for a large part of this campaign because of a range of issues.
“It does still feel that there is a lot to play for, and the final presentations and last two days of lobbying could be very important.” A decision will also be reached by IOC members on the addition of an extra sport for the 2020 Olympics. A space was freed when wrestling was originally dropped in February, though it was then allowed to reapply. It remains in the running after the IOC executive board voted for it following 30-minute presentations by each international federation. Baseball and softball were dropped as individual sports after 2008 in Beijing, but are now back as a joint bid, while squash has never been played at the Olympics, although it is a Commonwealth Games sport.
IOC president Jacques Rogge will step down on Tuesday after 12 years at the helm and a secret ballot will take place on the same day to decide from six candidates to replace the 71-year-old Belgian. The new president will face tough issues, including concerns over anti-gay legislation in Russia ahead of February’s Winter Games in Sochi and before the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Olympic hosts since 1972
- 1972: Munich, West Germany
- 1976: Montreal, Canada
- 1980: Moscow, Soviet Union
- 1984: Los Angeles, US
- 1988: Seoul, South Korea
- 1992: Barcelona, Spain
- 1996: Atlanta, US
- 2000: Sydney, Australia
- 2004: Athens, Greece
- 2008: Beijing, China
- 2012: London, UK
- 2016: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil