Bids For The 2000 Summer Olympics

Bids For The 2000 Summer Olympics

Five cities made presentations to the IOC Session in Monte Carlo to host the 2000 Summer Olympics. These were awarded to Sydney, Australia on 23 September 1993. The other cities were Beijing (China), Manchester (Great Britain), Berlin (Germany) and Istanbul (Turkey).

Brasilia, capital of Brazil, and Milan, Italy, withdrew during the bidding process - Milan shortly after submitting its bid book, Brasilia following the visit by the IOC Inspection Group, which stated the city had substandard facilities. Tashkent, Uzbekistan also put in a bid for the Games, in order to gain some recognition of that country's existence and new independence, but withdrew very early into the race.

Berlin was an early front-runner, hoping to cap the decade of German reconstruction & reunification by hosting the first Games of the new millennium. But the support of its bid was marred when anti-Olympic protesters marched through the city just four days before the final vote in Monaco. Manchester's bid book was considered strong, however with much regeneration in the city needed, and with a promotional video shown to the IOC depicting London landmarks such as Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge, the bid was criticised heavily by the British media sighting that the city's bid was 'suffering from an identity crisis'.Manchester bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics The impeding announcement of the host city came down to a head-to-head between Sydney and Beijing with Manchester, Berlin & Istanbul ranked outsiders.

When IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch thanked the five competing cities before announcing the winning bid, many Chinese in Beijing mistook his utterance of the city's name, before any of the others, as an announcement that it had been awarded the Games, and widespread celebrations began. These were cut short just minutes later when images from Sydney came through, illustrating the fact that the Australian city had won.

The International Paralympic Committee then awarded the 2000 Summer Paralympics to Sydney.