(ATR) It’s a six-way race for hosting rights to the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games.
The National Olympic Committees of Argentina, Mexico, Great Britain, Colombia, the Netherlands and Poland all submitted names of candidate cities ahead of Thursday’s deadline, according to the IOC.
Poznan, Poland will try again after losing to Nanjing in the vote for 2014.
Rotterdam, Netherlands also put itself forward at the last minute to join previously announced bids from Buenos Aires, Guadalajara, Glasgow and Medellin, Colombia.
"We are delighted with the high level of interest shown in hosting the 3rd Summer Youth Olympic Games in 2018," IOC president Jacques Rogge said Friday in a statement.
"It is a shining endorsement of just how successful the inaugural summer and winter editions were and reflects how the popularity, excitement and awareness surrounding the YOG continue to build at an impressive pace."
With the first two editions heading to Singapore in 2010 and Nanjing in 2014, the Americas and Europe are unsurprisingly the only continents putting forward candidates.
Abuja, Nigeria and Durban, South Africa both raised the possibility of bidding for the 2018 YOG but apparently decided otherwise.
Plans for a bid from Kaspiysk, Russia also went kaput prior to Thursday’s cutoff.
The next deadline in the race is March 15, by which NOCs, bid committees and candidate cities must submit the signed 2018 YOG Candidature Procedure to the IOC.
Bids will then have the chance to complete formal candidature files and related documents by Oct. 15. The field could be shortlisted by the Executive Board on Feb. 12 and 13 after a technical review. Under IOC rules, cities are limited from any international promotion.
The IOC will then pose additional questions to those candidates still in the running with video conferences between the bid committees and Evaluation Commission scheduled for March 2013 and a report to follow in May.
An election will be included on the program when IOC members gather in Lausanne in July 2013 for the technical briefing on the 2020 summer bids.
Written by Matthew Grayson.
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