Istanbul Launches 2020 Olympic Bid

(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