The IOC board of executives on Wednesday voted unanimously to place Tokyo, Japan and Istanbul, Turkey on its shortlist of application cities.
While the votes are not disclosed to the public, an unnamed official told the Associated Press that Doha accrued three votes out of 12, while competing Baku had no votes in favour of its bid.
Doha missed out at a similar stage for the 2016 Olympics Games which was eventually awarded to Brazil. IOC board member and finance commission chairman Richard Carrion commented that winning the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup was not enough to convince his fellow members that Doha was ready to hold the Games.
“This is a much more complex undertaking than a World Cup and maybe they should do that first,” Carrion said.
IOC officials were reportedly still concerned that the temperature would be too high for the competition, despite agreeing to let the city move the games to October. They were also said to worried that moving the Games to later in the year would place it conflict with television and other sports events held at that time of year.
The IOC report on the bid was also concerned that the budget costs were “significantly higher than any recent host city.”
The Associated Press also claims that officials were unwilling to risk controversy after the bidding for the World Cup was tainted by allegations of corruption.
Winning the right to host the Olympics in tandem with the World Cup would have generated a great deal construction work in Qatar. The cost of hosting the World Cup alone is currently estimated to be in the region of $120 billion.
The head of Doha’s bid, Noora Al-Mannai said while her team was disappointed to miss out this time around, they will continue to work on bringing the Olympics to the Middle East for the first time.
“I think it’s a missed opportunity for the IOC,” said Noora Al-Mannai. “This opportunity for 2020 has gone. There is nothing we can do. However, we don’t give up. I promise you we will be back.”