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DOHA - Qatar will bid for the 2016 Olympic Games - and continue bidding until it wins the right to stage the world's biggest sporting event, the Gulf state's National Olympic Committee said today.
The gas-rich emirate is currently hosting the December 1-15 Asian Games and is setting its sights on a bigger prize.
"I am confident we will win the rights to host the Olympic Games in 2016.
"Qatar is 100 per cent committed to this cause," said Sheikh Saoud bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, the secretary general of Qatar's NOC.
"Even if we don't win the bid (in 2009), we will bid again. We will keep on doing it till we succeed. Many other cities have done that in the past and we will also do the same, if we fail in our first bid," Sheikh Saoud told Qatar's Peninsula broadsheet.
The next Olympic Games will be held in Beijing in 2008. London will host the 2012 edition.
- REUTERS
