Doha’s prospects of ever staging an Olympic Games have been dealt a severe blow after the International Olympic Committee dropped them from the shortlist for the 2020 Olympics. Qatar was hoping to add the event to the 2022 World Cup but was denied after a technical report found that shifting the Games from its traditional summer slot to avoid the extremes of temperature risked damaging television revenues. The decision to drop Doha and Baku leaves the IOC with a weak field of just three cities, all of which face challenges. Madrid is mired in the Eurozone crisis, Japan is still recovering from earthquakes and Istanbul faces infrastructure challenges and a clash with its ambition to stage Euro 2020 a month before the Olympics. The decision to cut Doha was taken, the IOC said, for technical reasons, with concerns over climate, capacity, infrastructure and the impact on television schedules all cited as challenges. The IOC is also known to be nervous about the impact of Doha’s huge resources, and those of Baku, turning the campaign into a marketing arms race. The Telegraph

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