2020 Olympics in Tokyo

Malaysia's Nicol David pushes for squash to be included in the 2020 games

KUALA LUMPUR: The capital city of Japan, Tokyo, was selected by the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to host the 2020 Olympic Games, Saturday.

According to the IOC official website, www.olympic.org, Tokyo was chosen over fellow candidate cities, Istanbul and Madrid, after two rounds of voting during the 125th IOC session in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Tokyo, which previously hosted the games in 1964 and also bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, received 60 votes to Istanbul’s 36 in the final round, with Madrid having been eliminated in the first round after losing a tie-breaker with Istanbul.

“Congratulations to the city of Tokyo on its election as host of the 2020 Olympic Games,” said IOC President Jacques Rogge, whose 12-year term in office comes to an end on Sept 10.

“Tokyo presented a very strong technical bid from the outset and it needed to be in competition with two such high-calibre bids from Istanbul and Madrid.

All three cities were capable of staging excellent games in 2020, but in the end it was Tokyo’s bid that resonated the most with the IOC membership,” said Rogge.

After having elected Tokyo as the host city of the 2020 Olympic Games, the IOC Session is set to make another major decision today to determine the composition of the 2020 Olympic programme.

Two votes are scheduled – the first on the 25 core sports for the 2020 Olympic programme and the second on the possible inclusion of an additional sport for the 2020 and 2024 editions of the games, both based on proposals by the IOC executive board.

Baseball/softball, squash and wrestling were shortlisted for selection by the session in May following an extensive evaluation by the Olympic Programme Commission.

Malaysia’s squash queen and world number one player, Nicol Ann David were among the World Squash Federation (WSF) representative, who campaigned for world support to enable squash to be selected for 2020 Olympics.

However, Nicol was not in Buenos Aires to be with WSF representatives to hear the final decision.

The decision on the core sports is expected at around 10.15 am local time (9.15 pm Malaysian time ), while the vote on the possible inclusion of an additional sport is scheduled for noon (11 pm Malaysian time).

-Bernama