January 16, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 06, 1429

MADRID, Jan 15: Madrid’s hopes of winning the race to host the 2016 summer Olympics will not suffer from the proximity of the 2012 games in London, Spanish officials have insisted.

The Spanish capital joined six other cities on Monday by submitting their official bids to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at its Lausanne headquarters.

Joining Madrid were Chicago, Prague, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Baku and Doha.

Chicago is seen by many to be the early favourite to win the IOC’s assent, especially as the summer Olympics have not been held in North America since Atlanta in 1996.

But officials close to the Madrid bid said they were confident they could overcome any reluctance to award two successive games to European cities.

“The rotation of the continents is not a hard and fast rule and FIFA has just done away with this idea,” Madrid bid chief Mercedes Coghen told AFP.

“It’s the perfect juncture for Madrid, a multicultural city with a strong latin feeling, to organise an Olympic Games that would be very different to those in London,” the former field hockey gold medal winner added.

The bidding responses will now be studied by an IOC-appointed working group and by the IOC Executive Board, the latter meeting in June to decide which cities will be accepted as official candidates.

The cities selected as candidates will take part in an Observer Programme at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games this summer.

The election of the 2016 host city will take place in Copenhagen on October 2, 2009. —AFP