The modern Olympics do not come cheap for host cities. Even bidding to win the Games can be extremely costly. Turkey is planning to spend some $45 million preparing highly-detailed plans to demonstrate to the International Olympic Committee that it is a worthy candidate for the 2020 summer Olympics. The pitch is going to be a major undertaking. Istanbul will need to build from scratch nearly all of the venues for the Games. It will need to convince the IOC that it can also guarantee the transport structure and depth of hotel accommodation necessary to handle an expected million visitors and thousands of athletes, together with press and TV crews from all over the world. Its two rivals for the 2020 Games are Madrid and Tokyo. The Spanish bid suffers from two drawbacks. The first is that relatively recently with the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Spain has already had the event . The second is that Spain is in serious financial trouble. Although it is being claimed that winning the IOC's endorsement will generate considerable economic activity which would help pull the country out of its recession, the selectors will have to bear in mind the considerable risk that Spain might simply be unable to afford to mount the massive spectacular. For its part, Tokyo hosted the Games in 1964, remembered now as being the very first to be broadcast to television screens around the world. After London and Rio, an Asian venue may seem appropriate. Yet Istanbul is not to be dismissed. By 2016, Turkey's commercial capital will have a new six-runway airport, capable of handling 100 million passengers a year. By 2020, there is likely to be a third bridge across the Bosphorus and a railway tunnel beneath, linking European and Asian rail networks. The city is already served by a Mass Transit System combining metro, light rail, bus, tram and ferry services. This is being expanded rapidly. The Turkish economy is also strongly outperforming an EU which has since 1982 resisted Ankara's attempts to join. Within the Middle East and North Africa, Turkish contractors and businessmen are respected and winning big deals. Hosting the 2020 Games would undoubtedly seal Turkey's emergence as a global economic power. And Turkish businessmen clearly know this. Thus the top seven Turkish companies have just come together to pledge half the $45 million cost of the bid that their country will be making to the IOC this September. They will be pretty certain that in terms of dollars and cents, the long-term impact of the Olympics on the Turkish economy will be hugely significant. And the Turks have acquired some important support from an unexpected quarter. Greece, where in 2004 Athens hosted the first Games of the new millennium, has announced its enthusiastic endorsement of the Turkish bid. Moreover, the Greek government has promised to share its Olympics-mounting experience with its neighbor. Given that even before the actual competitive events started, the Athens organizers faced nail-biting finishes for some of the stadia and for the public transport system, this offer might need to be taken under advisement. However, wider European support for Istanbul's bid, say from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia would doubtless add weight to what is likely to be a stunning Turkish presentation to the IOC. Indeed, winning the Games might also finally unblock Ankara's accession to the EU.
