www.olympic.org - Site Officiel du Mouvement Olympique

Eleven cities expressed an interest in hosting the 2004 Olympic Games. They were (in alphabetical order): Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Istanbul, Lille, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, San Juan, Seville, Stockholm and St Petersburg. In view of the large number of cities interested in holding the 2004 Games, the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) 102nd Session in 1994 decided to use a two-phase election procedure.

In the first phase, the Evaluation Commission for the 2004 Olympic Games, composed of IOC members, representatives of the International Federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), athletes and specialists in other key areas, was asked to study the candidatures of the eleven cities, inspect the sites and prepare a written report. On the basis of the Evaluation Commission's report, a selection college, composed of the IOC Executive Board members (minus those members whose country was submitting a bid), a representative of the IFs, the NOCs and the athletes, the Evaluation Commission Chairman and the doyen of the IOC members, was given the task of selecting a number of finalist cities. Five finalist cities were chosen from the eleven candidate cities: Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Rome and Stockholm.

In the second phase, the IOC members were given the opportunity to visit the finalist cities before voting. The election took place by secret ballot at the 106th IOC Session. In each round of voting, members voted for just one city. According to the established procedure, if, after the first round, no city obtains an absolute majority of votes, the city with the fewest votes is eliminated and successive rounds are held until one city has a majority. However, if only two cities remain, the one with the greatest number of votes is elected.

On 5 September 1997 at the 106th IOC Session in Lausanne, Athens was elected as the Host City for the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in 2004.