Qatar kicks off its Olympics bid with glittering ceremony

Qatar: Qatar launched its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games in a dazzling ceremony on the Doha Corniche yesterday.

Shaikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, the Crown Prince of Qatar, unveiled the Games' logo and website during a ceremony during the two-hour event that also featured an aerial stunt team show, fireworks and the release of 2,000 coloured balloons which covered the sky of the capital.

Doha is among the seven cities whose bids for the 2016 Olympics were officially accepted on September 14 by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The other six cities are Baku (Azerbaijan), Chicago (USA), Madrid (Spain), Prague (Czech Republic), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Tokyo (Japan).

If awarded the Games, Qatar would become the first Arab country to host the Olympics.

The Gulf country and the other applicants will now proceed to the first phase of the selection procedure, where the IOC will review each city's potential to organise the Games and exclude those which are not deemed to be ready.

The final election of the host city will take place in Copenhagen on October 2, 2009.

With the Asian and the European continents hosting the 2008 and the 2012 Olympics respectively, Chicago and Rio are deemed the front-runners, while there is doubt over whether Doha would have the capacity to host the event.

"We are ready to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016... hosting the Olympic flame in the Arab world for the first time would extend the Olympic ideals to millions of new hearts and minds," said Hassan Ali Bin Ali, Chairman of Doha 2016 Olympic bid.

"We have world-class sporting infrastructure. Two of our stadiums were acknowledged to be the best in the world in a global contest sponsored by the IOC."

In 2005 Qatar set a record, becoming the first Arab country to host the Asian Games, the second largest international athletics event after the International Summer Olympics. More than 10,500 athletes and officials from 45 different countries participated in the event which featured 39 competitive sports totalling 423 events.

The country currently features an athletes' village for 11,000 and has a capacity of 6,500 hotel rooms, which will become 18,000 in the coming years due to new projects.

Officials said with most of the infrastructure already in place, Qatar will have to increase the capacity of the Khalifa Stadium from 50,000 to 60,000 seats, upgrade some of the existing facilities and probably add a velodrome and a baseball stadium, if the game is included as a discipline in 2016. The city will also need a new athletes' village.

The 2008 Olympic Games will be held in Beijing, China while London will host them in 2012.