UPDATE: Minutes ago Tokyo was announced as the host of the 2020 Olympics. Zaha Hadid’s design to become the Olympic stadium.
Today the International Olympic Comitee (IOC) will choose the city that will host the 2020 Olympics, with Madrid, Tokyo and Istanbul competing for the important event. The three cities just finished their presentations in Buenos Aires, Argentina, including presidents and royal members. As we await for the results, we present you the three stadiums designed to host the Olympics in each city.
More information and images:
Each one of the cities has presented a new design for their olympic stadium, which are renovations of existing complexes.
Winner of an international design competition, it's the most "futuristic" of the three proposals. The Tokyo Sports Council has highligthed the Zaha Hadid Architects proposal as an "innovative and liquid design, that expresses the adequate dynamism for sports activities." The base of the design is a complete overhaul of the Tokyo National Stadium, that hosted the Olympics back in 1964 and has a capacity of 80,000 people. Tokyo faces the risk of the recently announced radioactive leaks of Fukushima, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said "Let me assure you the situation is under control. It has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo."
The Madrid stadium proposal looks to renovate the old La Peineta stadium. Located on the east of the city, the proposal designed by Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos is more sober, and has been designed mainly as a soccer stadium with capacity for 70,000 people. Madrid faces a big economic crisis, but Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy assured that "Madrid has perhaps the most reasonable and responsible financial foundation in recent Olympic history. We can host the Olympics in 2020 with no risk to the Olympic movement."
The new proposal for Istanbul looks to renovate an existing stadium built in 2002, and it is part of a broader plan that looks to build 693 new sports facilities for the citizens and 25 stadiums. The redesign of the Ataturk Olympic Stadium is a key part of this plan, and was announced as part of the 2016 candidacy of Istanbul. The stadium was used for the final of the 2005 UEFA Champions League. While Istanbul opens the door to host the Olympics in a region that has not hosted any games so far, current conflicts in the region and recent manifestations in the country pose a risk. For this, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed that "We believe that hosting the Olympics in Istanbul will give this signal, this spirit of friendship and sharing and peace. And our country is a place where there is a lot of unity and diversity, and that is the idea that we can share on a broader scale with the Olympics Games being hosted in Turkey."
More about each city proposal: Tokyo 2020 / Madrid 2020 / Istanbul 2020
