Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid will compete for the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, the International Olympic Committee said Wednesday. The IOC's 15-member executive board narrowed down a list of candidates that also included Doha, Prague and Baku, whose bids were eliminated. “It was an impressive list to choose from,” IOC Communications Director Giselle Davies told reporters. She said the cities bidding offered “diversity from around the world ... reflecting very much the universal appeal of the Games.” The announcement was delayed by 25 minutes. The cities' bids were evaluated by a 13-member technical working group headed by IOC executive director Gilbert Felli, Davies said. The full IOC body will elect the 2016 Games host by secret ballot in Copenhagen in October 2009. The cities selected as candidates on Wednesday will take part in an observer program at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games this summer. Doha's representatives were unpleasantly surprised but vowed to return with a new bid in future. “We are really surprised by the IOC's decision, we thought our bid had all the benefits,” said bid chairman Hassan Ali Ben Ali. “But this will not prevent us from preparing a future bid,” he said. The Olympics have never been held in South America or the Middle East. IOC suspends Iraq The Iraqi Olympic Committee has been provisionally suspended over political interference by the Iraqi government, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced Wednesday. “The executive board of the IOC decided today to provisionally suspend the Iraqi national Olympic committee as a consequence of the ongoing political interference by the government within the sports movement in Iraq,” the IOC said in a statement. The IOC had warned Iraq of sanctions after Baghdad on May 21 disbanded its national Olympic committee, replacing it with a new organization supervized by the Iraqi sports ministry. The IOC on Wednesday said it “does not recognize any ‘interim committee' nor any other officers appointed by the Iraqi government.” Iraqi athletes still have a chance to compete in the Beijing Summer Olympics which are only two months away, an IOC source said.
