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2016 Summer Olympics

The 2016 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, is a major international sports and cultural festival to be staged in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The host city of the Games will be announced at the 121st IOC Session (which will also be the 13th Olympic Congress) to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009. The 2016 Summer Paralympics will also be held in the same city and organized by the same committee. Four finalists are being considered: Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo.

Bidding

The bidding process for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games was officially launched on May 16, 2007. The first step for each city was to submit an initial application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by September 13, 2007, confirming their intention to bid. Completed official bid files, containing answers to a 25-question IOC form, were to be submitted by each applicant city by January 14, 2008. Four candidate cities were chosen for the shortlist on June 4, 2008:: Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo (who hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics.) The IOC did not promote Doha to the Candidature phase, despite scoring higher than selected candidate city Rio de Janeiro due to their intent of hosting the Olympics in October, outside of the IOC's sporting calendar. Prague and Baku, Azerbaijan also failed to make the cut. .

Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco will head the Evaluation Commission, having also chaired the evaluation commission for the 2012 Summer Olympics bids. The commission will make on-site inspections in the second quarter of 2009. They will issue a comprehensive technical appraisal for IOC members one month before elections; the final selection will be made by the full IOC membership on October 2, 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Candidate cities

City	Bid page	Evaluation
Chicago	Bid details	7.0
Madrid	Bid details	8.1
Rio de Janeiro	Bid details	6.4
Tokyo	Bid details	8.3

Eliminated applicant cities

City	Bid page	Score
Baku, Azerbaijan	bid details	4.3
Doha, Qatar	bid details	6.9
Prague, Czech Republic	bid details	5.3

Cancelled bids

Bangkok, Thailand expressed much enthusiasm after Thailand's performance in the 2004 Olympic Games, but instead applied to host the 2010 Youth Games, , losing to Singapore.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Cape Town and Durban, South Africa expressed interest.
Delhi, India was originally set to enter a bid; however, in April 2007 it announced it would bid for the 2020 games instead.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was also poised to make a serious bid, but in the end did not for unknown reasons.
Fukuoka and Sapporo, Japan were other internal candidates eliminated by the JOC.
Houston and Philadelphia were eliminated by the USOC; San Francisco withdrew when it lost stadium funding and Los Angeles lost to Chicago for the bid.
Istanbul, Turkey broke with their standing policy to bid for every games, but vowed to try again.
Lisbon, Portugal considered bidding.
Monterrey, Mexico The Mexican Olympic committee declined to place a bid.
Montreal and Toronto, Canada abandoned any plans for a bid after Vancouver won the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Nairobi, Kenya The sports minister expressed interest in a bid, but the Kenyan Olympics head said it was not the right time.
Rome, Italy was a leading candidate for a time, but pulled out, preferring to wait for 2020.
San Diego, United States and Tijuana, Mexico (San Diego-Tijuana metropolitan area) discussed a joint bid.

Trademark Controversy

In 2005 a Parisian, Mr Gilbert L, in anticipation of bids for the Summer Olympics by Paris, France, registered the trademarks of "Paris 2016", "Paris 2020", "Paris 2024" and "Paris 2028" and the associated internet domain names. On March 14, 2007 the High Court of First Instance of Paris (Tribunal d'instance of Paris) ruled that the registration of the domain names was fraudulent and annulled the trademarks.

A similar issue has arisen for Chicago 2016 and Tokyo 2016. Both have been registered by entrepeneur Steve Frayne, who claimed the domains in 2004, as well as up to 40 other domain names with a similar city/year format that mimics the way Olympic Games are marketed. Frayne claims he will launch a forum designed to openly discuss the benefits and pitfalls of holding the Olympic in Chicago. Attempts by the USOC to have the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) release the names has failed and it will now be up to U.S. Federal courts to rule, which could take months or years.

The Olympic bid candidature documentation published by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) states that each bid must "...provide documentation indicating that appropriate measures have been taken to register domain names that are of value to your candidature such as '[City] 2016' followed by extensions .com .net .org as well as the country code concerned."

Rio de Janiero has control of rio2016.com, which they registered in 2003 while bidding for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Sports

The 2016 Summer Olympic programme is scheduled to feature 26 sports and a total of 39 disciplines. There are two open spots for sports and seven sports are bidding for inclusion in the 2016 programme. Baseball and softball, which were dropped from the programme in 2005, as well as karate, squash, golf, roller sports and rugby sevens will apply. A new system was approved for deciding which sports will be included, now a sport needs a simple majority rather than the two-thirds majority that was required before. Leaders of the seven sports will hold presentations in front of the IOC executive board in June 2009. The decision of which sports to include will be made at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, the same session where the host city will be decided.