International Olympic Committee (IOC) members will make their choice on February 8 – and will be choosing the location for perhaps the most important Olympic meeting in years to come.
The Congress happens no more than once a decade and was last held in 1994 in Paris.
This time the IOC has approved eight cities. Still in the running are Athens, Cairo, Copenhagen, Lausanne (Switzerland), Busan (South Korea), Riga Latvia, Singapore and Taipei. Mexico City dropped out of the running last month.
The large number of interested cities is probably a surprise to the IOC – the last bid was for an IOC session in 2007 where the host city of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games will be elected, and it attracted only three bidders.
Guatemala City defeated Durban and Copenhagen in August 2004 but the election campaign drew very little interest.
The high-profile 2012 Olympic Games bid election held last year at the IOC session in Singapore has raised appeal for hosting IOC meetings.
