The three candidates to host the 2020 Olympics will take a huge step on the road to who will be designated the winner in Buenos Aires on September 7 when they present their candidature files to the International Olympic Committee today in Lausanne.

Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo will all be sending high-profile delegations to hand over their dossiers which have been painstakingly put together and will be hoping the details meet with the approval of the majority of the 100 plus IOC members when they vote in eight months’ time.

With IOC members visits a thing of the past, since the reforms brought in following the Salt Lake City bribes for votes scandal, the dossier will be carefully studied before the all-important visit of the IOC Evaluation Commission, headed by IOC vice-president Craig Reedie, to the three cities for four-day visits in March.

The common perception has been that Istanbul has a fantastic chance to become the first country with a majority Muslim population to host the Games and has made great play on being situated on two continents.

Tokyo, who are the only one of the three cities to have previously hosted the Games in 1964, have been seen as the main rivals to Istanbul and importantly received the full backing of the newly-elected national government.

Madrid too will travel in a confident frame of mind.

Despite having had people question their ability to host the Games, given the parlous state of Spain’s finances, they have a ready answer as their bid leader Alejandro Blanco told AFPrecently.

“Some host cities were in a totally different economic situation when they were awarded the Games to when they actually delivered them,” he said.

“To my mind, it’s not how you start that matters so much, but how you end.”