Istanbul bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic Stadium. Turkey has yet to host an Olympic Games. Istanbul has made four previous bids for the Summer Games. The city was a candidate for the 2000 Games which were awarded to Sydney. It bid again for 2004, which were held in Athens, but failed to become a candidate city. It became a candidate for 2008 but lost to Beijing. The Turkish city's most recent bid was for the 2012 Games but it failed to become a candidate. London was awarded the 2012 Games. Istanbul lost to Tokyo for 2020. Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Games. Istanbul hosted the
2009 Summer Universiade the 2009 Summer Universiade games began in early 2004. Together with Belgrade another two cities bid for the event - Monterrey in Mexico and Poznań in Poland. Working in Belgrade's favour were the various major sporting events the city was awarded to host in the upcoming 2005, 2006 and 2007 such as Eurobasket 2005, the 2005 European Volleyball Championship, the 2006 European Water Polo Championship, and the European Youth Olympic Festival 2007. Furthermore, the city launched two unsuccessful candidate bids to organize the Summer Olympic Games: for the 1992 Summer Olympics Belgrade was eliminated in the third round of International