Istanbul 2020 bid leaves \u2018excellent impression\u2019<\/p>\n
ISTANBUL: Istanbul\u2019s presentation of its bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games left an \u201cexcellent impression\u201d the head of the evaluation commission said on Wednesday. Turkey\u2019s largest city, which is competing with Tokyo and Madrid for the 2020 Games, presented its candidacy to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) commission, headed by IOC vice president Craig Reedie, this week.<\/p>\n
Turkish officials highlight the bid as offering the first opportunity for a secular Muslim democracy to host the Games, which would also be the first staged on two continents \u2013 Europe and Asia. \u201cThese (visits) have been extremely well organised and we have an excellent impression of the skills and enthusiasm of the bid committee,\u201d Reedie told a news conference. Keen to avoid indicating a preference for any of the three candidate cities, he added: \u201cExcellent impression in my world is exactly the same as \u2018hugely impressed\u2019 or \u2018greatly impressed\u2019,\u201d referring to his comments about Tokyo and Madrid.<\/p>\n
Istanbul\u2019s projected infrastructure budget of $19.2 billion is vastly higher than the figures touted for Tokyo and Madrid, but the IOC\u2019s Olympic Games executive director Gilbert Felli said most of this sum was not tied to the Games. \u201cEven if the Games are not coming here, most of this budget will be spent,\u201d Felli said. \u201cThe development of the new city of Istanbul, the new constructions, is part of what they are going to do anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each city delivered their candidature files to the IOC in January and on-site inspections by an evaluation commission were held in Tokyo and Madrid earlier this month. Technical assessments will be published at the beginning of July. Reedie said the strong government and business community support for the Istanbul bid impressed the commission.<\/p>\n
Young population: Sports minister Suat Kilic highlighted this as well as the country\u2019s young population and dynamic economy as assets of the bid. Prime minister Tayyip Erdogan has transformed Turkey during his decade in power into the fastest-growing economy in Europe and raised the country\u2019s profile as a regional power in the Middle East. The country has also enhanced its sporting profile over the last decade, with increased sporting success and growing experience in hosting international events.<\/p>\n
However, Istanbul\u2019s growing population, currently around 14 million, has raised questions about the city\u2019s ability to handle the transport challenges presented by the Games. Istanbul, like Turkey as a whole, is a major tourist destination, used to handling large numbers of visitors. In 2012, the total number of foreign visitors to Turkey rose 1.04 percent to 31.8 million people, according to official statistics. Istanbul was the third most visited city in Europe after London and Paris, and the fifth most visited city in the world last year, bid organisers said. With over 9 million guests in 2012, the number of visitors increased by 16 percent from the previous year.<\/p>\n
Kilic played down concerns that Istanbul\u2019s bid could be undermined by the problems, which have faced organising committees for previous Olympics. In December, the IOC told organisers for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics they needed to push on with their preparations because time was an issue. Istanbul is bidding for the fifth time in the last six votes. The decision on who will host the 2020 Games will be taken by the IOC in September. reuters<\/p>\n
via Daily Times – Leading News Resource of Pakistan – Istanbul 2020 bid leaves \u2018excellent impression\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Istanbul 2020 bid leaves \u2018excellent impression\u2019 ISTANBUL: Istanbul\u2019s presentation of its bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games left an \u201cexcellent impression\u201d the head of the evaluation commission said on Wednesday. Turkey\u2019s largest city, which is competing with Tokyo and Madrid for the 2020 Games, presented its candidacy to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) commission, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":46055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3996],"tags":[5634],"class_list":["post-68826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-2020-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}