Will Doha make the 2016 shortlist?
In a press conference tomorrow at 19:30 KSA, IOC President Jacques Rogge will announce the selected Candidate Cities for the Games of the XXXI Olympiad to be held in 2016.
People seem to know the fate of 6 of the 7 Applicant Cities, but are undecided about Doha;
Just two months before the Beijing Games, the IOC is turning its attention to the Olympics eight years away.
The International Olympic Committee executive board will pick a shortlist of finalists Wednesday in the race for the 2016 Summer Games. The big question is how many: three, four or five?
With seven cities in the running, the board is expected to whittle the field to a maximum of five or minimum of three candidates.
"I would think four or five," IOC executive board member Gerhard Heiberg told The Associated Press.
Fairly certain of making the cut are the big four — Chicago; Madrid, Spain; Tokyo; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Expected to be eliminated are Prague, Czech Republic, and Baku, Azerbaijan.
The main issue is whether Doha, Qatar, will advance to the final stage.
[...]
Doha, capital of a tiny but wealthy Arab Gulf country of about 1 million people, looms as the wild card as it seeks to bring the games to the Middle East for the first time. It cites its hosting of the 2006 Asian Games as evidence that it can handle the Olympics. Due to Qatar's searing summer heat, Doha proposes holding the games in October, outside the IOC's preferred time frame of July or August.
"Our bid is a strong bid," Doha bid leader Hassan Ali Bin Ali said last month in Qatar. "We have 70, 75 percent of our venues ready for the Olympics."
Some rival bid officials are worried that if Doha makes the shortlist, the city — while a longshot to win — would have the capacity to take away crucial votes in the early rounds of voting.
So those of you wanting to see the Olympics come to Qatar, keep your fingers crossed at 19:30 tomorrow!
Source: International Herald Tribune
the infrastructure plans were actually ranked third out of them all. Chicago was 5th.
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Sorry Doha didn't make the bid. Rio was chosen. I guess Doha was too much of a gamble. No booze except in hotels, no bacon, potentially unstable region, lack of expertise in middle-management, not long enough history of transparent government decision-making, language skills, human rights, and infrastructure.
Personally, I think the IOC made a mistake. Seoul was chosen for the 1988 Olympics. Korea, at that time, was still a dictatorship with many human rights abuses. Because the Olympics were there, Korea opened up and citizens started thinking about being part of the global village. The government couldn't ignore the people any longer. This could have happened here but, big difference, there was an elected government there but there still is a monarchy here.
The announcement came an hour ago. Doha is NOT on the shortlist.
4 June 2008
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced today that Chicago (USA), Tokyo (Japan), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and Madrid (Spain) have made it on to the shortlist of cities bidding to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Candidate Cities were accepted unanimously from seven Applicant Cities, which also included Prague (Czech Republic), Baku (Azerbaijan) and Doha (Qatar)*.
“All the bids were of a very high standard,” said IOC President Jacques Rogge. “It is a tribute to the health of the Olympic Movement that the field was so strong. I congratulate the Candidate Cities and I hope that those cities which were unsuccessful this time have benefited from the process.”
and Chicago
During the Asian games most of the the stadiums were empty
Hardly any outside visitors came let alone from the gulf states
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Simply no. Even it if did make the first cut it's bid could never last long enough to host the games. Anyone who lives in Doha will tend to agree with me........and outside hardly anyone knows what Doha (Qatar) is anyway.
"He said I was ugly and I couldn't read good"
--Dave Chappell (1973 - to-date)
@lima, don't worry, it was a rhetorical question.
I was just pointing out that it's been done before :)
@joeinqatar, I've been. The last one was Qatar v China and it wasn't maxed out but there were alot of people for sure
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Dear Joe In Qatar, I am so sorry to offend you or anyone else who thinks that Qatar is an actual city. I've been to these BIG events here and the only people who show up are a bunch of guys wearing dresses. WTF?
Qatar hosting the 2016 olympics is nothing but a joke bought by a few. Chicago will get the olympics because it is a REAL city in a country who knows how to treat their guests right. Qatar sucks and always will.....unless you like sand and trash and no culture.
I was there, I frickin know. J out
lol - good point joe!
I don't think you guys have been to any "big events" here? no one goes!!! so the hotel thing is a non issue
No mooseknuckle, obviously they'll expect more people than that. I don't know how the logistics work, but the fact is that the IOC require host cities to have at least 60,000 hotel rooms available. Doha will meet that criteria.
tallg, so is Doha only expecting 80,000 visitors or at best 160,000? WOW that would be the best olympics ever seeing that Sydney pulled in over 8 million.
Now here is a thought to ponder, oh brilliant one, these visitors also have to eat, is Doha going to build 10,000 new restaurants too?
EH IAM SINGLE NOW WILL CHEAT YOU U IN THE NITE LOL
whatever. atleast 2016 expected olympics is creating so much development and projects and a lot of recruitments.. thatz what i care for myself as of now.
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lionheart lol...I've moved on now....
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
I'm fairly certain Doha's bid has nothing to do with Dubai.
HEY BABE I MISSED YOU SO MUCH
yeah I saw something about Dubai going for it too?....
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
& did i hear somewhere Doha has applied for Olympics along with Dubai. Now this has another angle too.
1. Olympics can never be alloted to two cities.
2. Dubai is not that keen to do it alone, resulting in non-allocation of 2016 to Doha...
Any comments ????
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Ok, I think what you're trying to say is that hotel rooms AREN'T the only requirement for hosting the olympic games.
And I totally agree with that, but my comment was in response to mooseknuckles who said that Doha wont have enough hotel rooms by 2016, which is wrong.
I don't believe Doha will be awarded the games for several reasons (which I've discussed on numerous other threads on QL) but lack of hotel rooms will not be one of them.
hi there. i was referring to the comments made my u in the link http://www.qatarliving.com/node/114685#comment-445746
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Looking into it, it appears that the minimum requirement for hotel rooms is 60,000, so Doha will easily surpass that with 80,000.
skdkak - I don't understand the point of your comment to me.
we are not talking sony or walkman dear.
this is middle east and u know the status of both alcohol & prostitues in this region.
Even if government allows these things to florish (unofficially/officially) then we will surely have empty stadiums due to so called real islamists who will try sabotage the unholy things here
& tallag: hotel rooms are THE only requirment in games.
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tallg is right. Qatar made a committment to have enough hotel rooms available although I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head. I'm sure they had to back up the committment with facts on how it would be accomplished as well.
am in sydney and it sucks right now! 15 deg C, heavy rain and the howling wind. Umbrellas flying around everywhere!
i miss the qatar heat! :(
you can have some of our lovely 40+ degrees and the dust anyday
at least you can go to your local pub and enjoy the lovely beer on tap and enjoy some of the green parks and beautiful beaches and peace of mind when your driving not like our crazy "camel Crusier" nutters, if your that cold mate go up north to Queensland or you could go to perisher and snowboard
Olympics = tourists = alcohol = prostitutes!!
Olympics = prostitutes
hence proved.
---Life is Fragile, Handle With Prayer---
everything will come when they get the olympics :)
skdk by 2016 lot of things would have changed..sometime back the best invention by sony was the walkman and now we have mp3 or ipod so things will change :)
Mooseknuckle - Your figures are wild. Doha's bid to be an Applicant City would never have been accepted if they weren't going to have the necessary hotel rooms and accommodation.
I believe Doha claims they will have 80,000 hotel rooms ready by 2016, and this is deemed adequate by the IOC. (Someone correct me if 80,000 isn't quite right.)
maybe off the topic. but conducting Olympics also means a lot of foreigners in town. that in turn means tourism and BOTH
Tourism & Olympic
do require availability of easy drinking & if not legal but definitely a lot of prostitutes....
Does anyone have the solution to this ..
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will take a look at the other post.
Anybody with even half a brain would be able to see that Qatar could not possibly host the 2016 Olympics. Let's just look at a few numbers first:
Let's say only 1,000,000 people come from other countries to see the events, and they all come in pairs, Doha would need 500,000 hotel rooms. Doha only has around 23 hotels now. Where would people stay? So Qatar would have to build 1000, 5000 room hotels in 8 years. If they started now and built 125 hotels each year for the next 8 years there would be a place to stay for them all. Now factor in the coaches, athletes, medics, trainers, security personel, media, judges, and camera personel just to name a few and you'll see Qatar needs even MORE facilities.
THIS IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN!!! Pull your heads out of the sand and do the math.
If the answer is YES tonight, 2 things will happen:
(1) property values will shoot up. Don't you think property values will shoot up even higher in anticpation of all the building? Look at what happened before the Asian Games.
(2) I will stay and not go to KSA.
For those discussing it already here, try searching QL for more pros and cons of Doha hosting the games. I remember it was a discussed a few times previously.
Here's another article about Doha's chances; http://www.nbcolympics.com/newscenter/news/newsid=134567.html
Brings up your point about October being late, lima. And it also makes an interesting point about the gender discrimination, though Hassan Ali Bin Ali makes some good points in his defence of that issue.
am in sydney and it sucks right now! 15 deg C, heavy rain and the howling wind. Umbrellas flying around everywhere!
i miss the qatar heat! :(
---Life is Fragile, Handle With Prayer---
I have seen some infrastructure projects that will end by 2016 & they look awesome especially the Doha Olympic Village Masterplan. Even the Interchanges & intersections that are planned look awesome & hopefully Qatar should have a fantastic transport system by 2016.
theres nothing good about this place so who care who misses me ill be in a great free place to eat what i want drink what in oz beats the hell out of this dusty hole and besides Sydney has already being there in 2000 , sorry but we had a great time.
Doha has already allowed Israeli athelets to compete. Sheher Peer took part in the Women's tennis competition a few months back.
The games are EIGHT YEARS away. With the kind of will and deep pockets, they can easily handle the traffic and anything else sent their way. Everybody faces challenges, i dont think ANY of the other bidding cities is in any shape right now to host the Olympics in 2016 with their PRESENT infrastructure. The whole point of bidding for the games with such a huge gap in between is to try and be ready for the Games in time.
If people think that the infrastructure NOW (as on June 4, 2008) is the infrastructure that would be there in October, 2016 to host the Games, then please, it aint so. Things will definitely be much better.
Qatar has the means, the will, the guidance and the power to organise the biggest Games on the planet. And they sure as hell is going to. Mark my words!
it will be superbly organized. I'll keep my fingers crossed for Qatar.
Not once in my replies have I said Doha cannot hold the games her. I'm all for the Olympics being held here in Doha. Was just saying not sure what the athletes themselves would think of it. Sorry if my post offended you. :)
Go Qatar! Fo' Sho'!
@lima, America usually hosts it in October, so why can't Qatar ? :)
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to be allowed to hold them later but I'm not sure if the athletes themselves or other people around the world will like to have Summer Olympics in the Winter. But as I said earlier, I think it would be good to have the games here in Doha.
Qatar have requested to be allowed to hold them in October because of the heat. Usually the IOC want the games held by September at the latest, but can make exceptions in cases like this (and indeed have done so in the past).
to have the Olympics here in Doha, just note sure what the athletes or other people will think of having them in the autumn/winter. As they sure won't be having them in the summer here.
And Qatar will surely mourn it's loss when you leave, ncmedia.
ncmedia...good for you...
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
i ll be long gone from this boring hell hole
tallg....thanx....duuhhh lol...so its 19.30 tonite we find out then?....
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Supernurse - read the first line of the original post ;-)
Generally the asian games were seen as successful, but there were several serious issues. However, if they have any sense they'll have demonstrated to the IOC that they've understood and can learn from these problems/mistakes.
how exciting......when do we find out the result?
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
it. It means they are willing to take the chance. Actually, it is the reason why the IOC select it in advance to make the candidate city to have enough time to prepare the venue. The fact that Qatar already hosted the Asian Games, It will only need to double or triple their efforts to host a Olympic game.
As for the traffic, infrastructure,housing blah,blah,blah, ......, it sure a welcome notes for engineers and architect and builders (means more projects and more employment). Let's think positive, more on employment opportunities!!!!!
"dgoodrebel will always be the rebellious good one"
its either Rio or Qatar.
For your awareness Asian games were successful,no one could have done it better, yeah I can see the jealousy veins with green blood
annc - Qatar has already allowed Israeli athletes to compete in sports events held here.
I like trams. They look good.
excellent points-
Doha cannot handle the day to day traffic as it is- the Olympic crowds would totally overwhelm the city roads. Also- the fact it is Muslim-law would be an issue- could athletes from Israel compete? Security would be a nightmare for them.
Doha doesn't have much to attract people- not sure (other than the Emir's money and oil) why it is on the list.
I don't think so, I dont want it, I wish not, I hope not.
simply No No No No No No No No
In the Cookies of Life, FRIENDS are the Chocolate Chips
www.bastook.com
dont mind another episode of games. just that i dont want them to choke traffic flow by breaking roads and all that. then again qatar is more than just another rich oil country. its a country with a new found purpose on the maps of the world. a country with initiative.
then again, if it means getting trams on the city roads. this is awful. i know melbourne. and trams are a real eyesore.
QATAR- MAKING IT HAPPEN
Well said Greeker. I have no doubt that come 2016 Qatar can host a spectacular Games.
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Those of us who were there in the run up to the Asia Games will remember the chaos then. Sorry, but Qatar just does not have the infrastructure, the road system or the housing/accomodation necessary to support their bid.
if it makes it.. its really good.. we will be seein a lot of develpoment here..
Last year, in November, i had the chance to talk to Sir Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the Organising Committee of the London Olympic Games. And what he said struck me deep.
He said that "It is all about how badly the country wants it".
Having been closely ssociated with sports in this nation, i feel that they will DEFINITELY make the shortlist for Bidding city. There is no denying that Doha has rganisational capabilities/. They have been holding so many international level competitions. Many Qataris are also on top level administrative posts in various international organisations. Brigadier Dahlan Al hamad, IAAF VP and Shatri, Asian Gymnastics Association president are two names which immediately comes to mind.
I think its time the Olympics came to the Middle East. They have a good chance to make it, and they will.
yes and look at all the problems they have had with it being there, protests etc etc and lack of free journalism.
I think that there are far more worthy contenders in the list than Qatar, although I would not be surprised if it made the short list due to - money, politics etc.
Have faith!!! Come on Qatar!! I'm behind them all the way!!....they want this so badly, at least us as residents in their lovely country should support the bid!!!
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
http://www.qatarliving.com/group/ql-kairali
YOU DONT KNOW ME, DONT EVEN TRY !!!
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دورني
Hope allah doesnt let it go further .........
http://www.qatarliving.com/group/ql-kairali
YOU DONT KNOW ME, DONT EVEN TRY !!!
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All the best to Doha
i really dunno if Doha is gonna make it or not.. why to think so much.. lets wait for a day and see...
Doha will definitely be one of the candidate city.
Wake up! Bejing got this years Olympics with their record of Human rights and freedom..
Will it mean they might at the very least sort out the roads?
Mmmmmmmmm me thinks NOT - it will only get worse!
As a wildcard - well they will be able to throw as much money as imaginable in to it.
Issues preventing it coming here I think are;
Human Rights Issues
Freedom of all people in country? - sponsorship law
Poor Infractructure
Loads of people never heard of the country
Poor building quality
Lack of freedon of 'western influences' Public affection, clothing, drinking, etc etc
to name just a few.......
No question about it.. They've spent too muc h money to not make the short list..
While it would probably be a logistics nightmare for those of us who live here - it would still be cool for Qatar. On top of that, just think of the projects that will be going out for bid. Engineering firms in the region would be salivating.
No ...
robertsky09
viva la doha!!!