The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announces that all nine applicant cities for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games have now returned their responses to the IOC questionnaire. The bid cities had until midnight tonight to submit their files to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne Switzerland.
The responses will now by studied by an IOC-appointed working group and by the IOC Executive Board, which will meet on May 18 to decide which cities will be accepted as Candidate cities.
IOC President Jacques Rogge said, “we are delighted to see that all nine applicant cities have returned their dossiers on time, clearly confirming their interest and determination to pursue the process to host the Olympic Games in 2012. There is still a long way to go until the election of the host city in July 2005. We wish good luck to all nine cities and look forward to a fair competition”.
Applicant cities can now make their responses public and post them on their Web sites.
The Candidature files will be returned to the cities on November 15 and the nine cities will receive a visit by the IOC Evaluation Commission in February and March of 2005.
A report by the Evaluation Commission will be published and given to the IOC members no later than one month before the election, which takes place July 2005 at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore.
