Turkey to host the Olympics?

Hasan Arat was in charge of the Istanbul 2020 bid but eventually lost out to Tokyo – despite the city receiving widespread praise during the bidding process.

Speaking ahead of his appearance at the Host Cities summit in Dubai, Mr Arat said Turkey had not given up and would make another bid in the near future.

He said: “Istanbul 2020 had a truly inspiring story. We offered the Olympics the chance to bridge to a brand new culture, to a country and a region that has never hosted the games before.

“One of our biggest challenges was demonstrating to the International Olympic Committee that we, as a city and as a nation, have the capacity to stage a well-organised, well-funded, safe, and efficient Games.

We showed them this and with the planned investment we ensured that Istanbul was more than capable of hosting the Games in 2020 - but sometimes property owners want to see evidence of you infrastructure in action and already in place.

“We are now better equipped than ever before to host major sports events and we have a greater understanding of what is required to host an Olympic Games.

“Our next bid will be our strongest yet.”

Mr Arat will be one of the major names at the Host Cities summit in Dubai, where those in attendance will ask him questions about the next Olympic Bid and go into detail about how it will be improved this time.

A range of other speakers are flying in for the event, which is on December 4 and 5 at the Park Hyatt hotel.

On the agenda is a look at what Dubai is planning for the future in terms of hosting events along with a range of other industry topics.