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Chairman's Blog

14.01.2008

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

This is just a short blog entry to wish everyone a very happy new year and very best wishes for 2008 from me and from all the Doha 2016 team.

Over the past few weeks, I managed to take a few days of holiday to celebrate Eid al-Adha  and to recharge my batteries for a very busy year ahead. After the pace of the past few months I certainly needed the break, as 2008 will be a particularly important and busy year for the Doha 2016 Bid.

Later this month, we will hand in our Bid Application File to the IOC. This document, which we will also post onto our website after the IOC has approved it, contains many of the broad-brush details about our Bid.

It has been an enormous task putting the Application File together, as you will see from the levels of detail required  everything from numbers of hotel rooms planned in Doha, to distances between venues, to temperature and humidity records.

This has obviously taken a lot of hard work by many people over the past few months and I am extremely grateful for a great team effort.

However, all the hard work has been well worth it as the team has put together an extremely strong plan, of which I am sure the IOC will approve.

So keep an eye on the website for the latest details about our Bid  and in particular for the summaries of our Bid Application File, which will be uploaded onto the site soon.

Our major focus in 2008 will be in June, when the IOC decides whether Doha will be accepted as a Candidate City for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

This is a key moment in the Bid process. We are confident that, with the plan we have outlined in the Bid Application File, the IOC will allow us to become a Candidate City.

And after that, we will spend the next 17 months preparing the Doha 2016 Bid Book, which will go into considerably more detail than the Application File.

I am very much looking forward to 2008. It promises to be an exciting year. In the meantime, please do keep supporting our Bid to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Games to the Arab world for the first time.