
(ATR) The prime minister of Turkey launches a new bid from Istanbul for the Olympics, saying the nation is prepared to win this fifth try for the Games.
"For the first time we feel we are ready to reach our target," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an audience of sports leaders and media at the headquarters of the National Olympic Committee of Turkey.
"We are a candidate country because we are playing a great role in terms of advancing peace in the world. Our country is protecting sports values and the Olympic spirit," said Erdogan according to remarks delivered through a translator.
In an hour-long press conference, Erdogan said that with 40 percent of the Turkish population under 30 years of age, Turkey "has caught the spirit of the Olympics".
He also expressed his belief that cities bidding for a second Olympic Games should not be considered in the same way as a city seeking its first Games. And he proclaimed that among countries with a majority Muslim population, Turkey was the most prepared to host an Olympics.
This fifth bid from Istanbul follows campaigns for 2000, 2004 2008 and 2012. These past bids fared poorly in the eyes of the IOC, never advancing to the final rounds of voting. For the 2012 campaign, Istanbul failed to make the short list, a distinction shared with Rio de Janeiro which came back to win 2016.
For the 2012 bid, the IOC faulted transport, accommodations, security and the general infrastructure of the city. In 2008, the IOC scathinglynoted than on this third consecutive bid, organizers still had not come to grasp the complexity of an Olympic Games.
Erdogan says much has changed in Istanbul since those failed bids and NOC president Ugur Erdener says the 2020 bid will also change.
"This time I want to arrange everything differently,"he tells Around the Rings.
An Olympic Stadium and other new arenas and venues have been built since the last campaign ended in 2001, he notes.
Erdener says a team is now at work to scope out the specifics of the new bid.
Erdener is both an IOC member and president of World Archery, the international federation for the sport. Past Istanbul bids have not had the benefit of both connections and for the 2012 campaign Turkey had no IOC member after the 2003 death of Sinan Erdem.
The deadline to formally apply with the IOC to bid for 2020 is Sep.1. Rome, Madrid and Tokyo are the only other sure candidates at this stage. Doha is believed to be considering a bid, while rumors persist that the U.S. might launch a last-minute bid from New York City. The IOC vote for 2020 will be cast in September 2013.
Written and reported in Istanbul by Ed Hula
Últimas Noticias
Brigitte Henriques: “The important thing is that the women who are elected should be chosen for their ability, not because we are looking for modernization in terms of gender”
“When I was a girl I couldn’t find a club to play soccer in because most of them didn’t work with women,” Henriques tells Around the Rings during an in-depth interview in Crete, Greece.

The Hula Report: Winds of Change for ANOC in Crete
New leaders coming for peak Olympic group. Whether other candidates emerge in the months ahead, a contested election for the ANOC presidency will be a first for the organization.

Gilles Gilbert Gresenguet, presidential candidate for AFCNO: “We must take advantage of Paris 2024 to bring the Olympic Games back to French”
The elections take place November 18, and Abakar Djermah Aumi, president of the Chad Olympic Committee, is also aiming to win them.

USOPC announces 613-member 2020 U.S. Olympic Team

Roger Federer pulls out of Tokyo Olympics: "I am greatly disappointed"
(ATR) Federer cites "a setback with my knee" for the decision.
