altGAS-RICH Qatar today revealed details of its ambitious bid to host the 2016 Olympics, citing state-of-the-art facilities it has or will build for the event and its record in staging the Asian Games.

 

"I am very confident that Doha will remain in the bid until the end and hopefully we will win," Hassan Ali bin Ali, chairman of the Doha 2016 bid, said.

 

"Doha is the first Arab Capital to be in the bid to host the Olympic Games.

"We have a very strong bid due to our ready venues and our huge experience after hosting the Asian Games in 2006."
 
Bin Ali said the bid was strongly backed by Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and by Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who heads the Gulf state's National Olympic Committee.
 
Qatar, which sits on the world's third-largest gas reserves, spent $2.8 billion (£1.43 billion) to build gleaming stadiums and other facilities for the Asian Games held in December 2006 - though stellar events such as the athletics played to largely empty stadia - and will also host the 2011 Asian Cup.
 
Over the past decade, it has hosted many other sports events, including tennis and golf tournaments.
 
Qatar has proposed to host the Olympics from October 14 to 30 if it wins, a period in which mild weather conditions in the hot desert state "suit the Games and the spectators," bin Ali said.
 
Bin Ali said there were many cases of the Olympics not being held in summer and he did not think the proposed date would affect Doha's chances of clinching the honour to host the Games.
 
According to bin Ali, tiny Qatar offers the advantage of having "85 percent of the venues in the same city," seven to 10 kilometres (four to six miles) away from the Olympic village it plans to build.
 
That will help athletes, spectators and the media reach any venue quickly, he said.
 
He said Qatar, which is going through a construction boom, expects to have around 83,000 hotel rooms ready by 2016, which "is more than the number required by the IOC (International Olympic Committee)."
 
The new facilities that will be built for the event will also include a media village, he said.
 
Bin Ali said Qatar's population is expected to grow to around 2.5 million by 2016, overcoming a potential hurdle to hosting the Games.
 
Qatar currently has a population of around 900,000, of whom only some 200,000 are natives.
 
Moreover, bin Ali said, "spectators will not be only from Qatar."
 
Qatar is a short flight from many Arab countries and "six hours away from European and Asian countries," he said.
 
Hosting the Olympics would give Qatar a chance to "show the Arab world" to the rest of the world.
 
"We'll bring together people from different cultures, we will celebrate change," he said.
 
"We really hope that we will be given the opportunity to host the Games."
 
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