Madrid Confident It Will be Third Time Lucky for Olympics Bid

The IOC (International Olympic Committee) evaluation committee on Tuesday visited the proposed site of the Olympic stadium in Madrid, should the city be chosen to stage the 2020 Olympic Games. The 65,000 capacity La Peineta stadium was somewhat of a building site when the 14 IOC evaluation committee members went to the site. La Peineta, which would be used for track and field events, was built in 1994 and is scheduled to continue undergoing "renovation" until June 2015, although most observers say this date is likely to be exceeded. Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee had said recently that he expected the stadium to be ready on time and would later be transferred over to Atletico Madrid football club. Madrid is on a three-city shortlist to host the 2020 Olympic Games, alongside Tokyo, Japan and Istanbul, Turkey. Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. has been a member of the IOC Executive Board since 2012. The Spaniard was confident on Tuesday that Madrid had put its best foot forward to the IOC evaluation commission. "We are putting, the best, to the best of our ability forward to the commission. A good project, it's not a matter of imagining and making up things. The project is solid, good, we are proud and excited about it and so our job these four days is rather simple. We just need to explain it in the most simple and understandable way." It is the third Olympics in a row that Madrid has bid for, having lost out to London for the 2012 Games and Rio de Janeiro for 2016. The IOC evaluation committee has already visited Tokyo and will go to Istanbul next week. The full International Olympic Committee will select the host city in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 7th.