Beijing to Submit Bid Answers TuesdayAfter four months of preparation, Beijing, vying to host the 2008 Olympic games, will hand over its bid questionnaire report to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday in Lausanne.The 22-question report covers six Olympic themes such as concept, infrastructure and financing. The IOC will use the questionnaire to decide who will enter the next stage of bidding on August 29. Combating recent corruption and bribery scandals, the IOC made bid procedure reforms in February. IOC has divided the procedure into two phases. The first phase began February 24 when the IOC gave bid questionnaire to the Olympic applicants.Cities which progress into the second phase of bid will submit another report until January. The IOC will then tour candidate cities in the following three months. On July 25, 2001, the final vote on who will host the 2008 Olympic games will be held at IOC's 112th session in Moscow. Beijing, in its second pursuit for the Olympic games, is considered one of the top contenders, but strong rivals like Paris and Toronto combined with the new bid procedure will pose a severe challenge, said the Beijing Bidding Committee. The new procedure saves judges from the frequent and long tours to candidate cities but IOC members, especially those from Europe and South America, will not have as many opportunities to know more about Beijing, said Wang Jinming, director of Beijing's Olympic bid consultant department. Beijing mayor Liu Qi, the president of the bid committee, promised that the city would exert any possible efforts to make Beijing the next host of the Olympic games. |
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