The bid books for the 2020 Olympics are officially in, so time to let the pre-Games begin.
Tokyo, Madrid, and Istanbul - the three candidates vying to host the 2020 Games - have submitted several hundred pages of documents about why they’d be the perfect city for these specific Olympics, including everything form security, to finances, to budgets, transportation, and venues.
The IOC evaluation committee will tour the three cities and prospective sites in March, then meet with the bidding committees at IOC headquarters in Switzerland this July, and finally the three will face off in a secret ballot voted on by all the IOC heads during a meeting in Buenos Aires this September.
Tokyo was the 1964 host and is a finalist for the second straight Summer Games cycle, while Madrid has never hosted, but finished third for 2012 and second for 2016. Istanbul has failed in four bids since 2000.