MADRID (AP) After losing out on the past two Olympics, Madrid believes it has honed its bid to a point where it makes the most financially prudent choice to host the 2020 Games.
Thrift is at the core of Madrid's bid, stressing that 80 percent of its venues are already built the city will equip its picturesque bullring for basketball, for example and only $1.9 billion is needed to complete Olympic construction.
The bid committee has also made a point of highlighting how hosting the games might act as a stimulus to an economy that in 2020 should have emerged from one of its longest and deepest financial crises.
By Sept. 7, when the full International Olympic Committee will select the host city by secret ballot, Spain will have been in recession for most of the past four years and burdened with a staggering 26.3 percent unemployment rate. Madrid is competing against Tokyo and Istanbul.
Tourism is Spain's second most important industry and in 2012 it catered for 57.7 million visitors, a total likely to be exceeded in 2013, according to the tourism department's statistics agency, Frontur. Madrid believes it makes an ideal and very safe destination for Olympic visitors as well as Spaniards whose sporting success recent years has been a topic of great national pride.