2020 Olympics bids under spotlight
The three cities bidding to host the 2020 Olympics have all had positive and negative elements of their plans highlighted by the IOC evaluation commission.
The findings by the commission, headed by British IOC vice-president Sir Craig Reedie, has not ranked the bids, however, and all three cities - Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo - have been declared able to stage the Games but all have had some concerns highlighted.
Reedie said: "The evaluation commission made sure to produce a report that we feel is an accurate, objective and fair assessment of each of the three candidate cities. We are indeed very pleased with the quality of each bid and it is clear that the IOC members will have a difficult choice to make this September in Buenos Aires."
The main concerns around Madrid's bid were financial issues and the commission made several references to the state of the Spanish economy, though it considered it "achievable" to stage a Games there.
Madrid's budget included just 19million US dollars (£12million) for security which the commission declared "very modest". By contrast London 2012's overall security costs exceeded £1billion, with in-venue security costs totalling £553million.
Tokyo's report produced the fewest number of concerns about the technical aspect of its bid but raised questions over the level of public support in the city and Japan.
A public opinion poll commissioned by the IOC showed 70% support for the Games in Tokyo and 67% in the rest of the country. That contrasted with figures of 83% and 76% for Istanbul and Turkey, and 81% and 76% for Madrid and Spain.
The report states: "The commission noted that should Tokyo be elected as the host city, it would be important for communications efforts to commence immediately in order to develop the vision and ensure that the whole country could share in the excitement of the Games."
It also warned that the planned venues for judo, table tennis and boxing presented "operational challenges due to the limited space" available around the venues.
Istanbul's bid commanded the most public support but looks to have the greatest technical challenges. Its claim that athlete travel time from the Olympic Village to competition venues would not exceed 35 minutes "may be optimistic", said the report.
