2020 Olympics host city shortlist due May 23

PanARMENIAN.Net - The choice of host city for the 2020 Olympics is still 15 months away, but a shortlist is due to be announced on Wednesday from declared candidates Baku, Doha, Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid, AFP reports.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) at this early stage in the competition only looks at the cities' abilities to host a major sporting event, ranking their transportation and other infrastructure and the challenges they face to ramp up in time for the event.

Tokyo are the only one of the candidates to have hosted the event and seen widely as the early front runners, while Istanbul were seen as the dark horses until a spanner was thrown into the works when Turkey also announced they were bidding for the 2020 European football championship.

Doha failed to even make the short list last time and the subsequent furore after Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup has according to some made IOC members reluctant to suffer the same press as FIFA did.

Baku also failed to make the short list last time but say they have learnt from their mistakes this time round.

Once the shortlist is announced, the candidates will have 15 months to persuade delegates to vote for their respective bids.