TOKYO (AP) -- The Japanese Olympic Committee on Wednesday chose Tokyo over the southwestern city of Fukuoka as the country's pick to vie for the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

The 55-member selection committee held a vote at a Tokyo hotel to choose between the two cities after presentations were made for each candidate city. The vote was 33-22.

"Now we want to congratulate the people of Tokyo," JOC President Tsunekazu Takeda said.

Tokyo, which hosted the Summer Games in 1964, has billed itself as the "compact" choice, promising to provide facilities for 26 of 28 games within a 6-mile radius of downtown. It says that each venue can be reached within 20 minutes from athletes' villages by designating special lanes for the games on the capital's highways and regular roads.

Fukuoka, the biggest city on Japan's southeastern island of Kyushu, had said that it would center its Olympic facilities at three sites around town. It has never hosted an Olympics.

Earlier this month, the selection committee issued a report evaluating the competing bids that local media have seen as favoring Tokyo.

The selection committee was made up of 25 JOC executive board members, along with 30 representatives from sports federations and the Japan Sports Association for the Disabled, according to the JOC.

Japan joins Brazil, Spain, the United States and India among the potential host nations for the 2016 Games.

The International Olympic Committee will send out requests for bids next spring, and the selection will be announced in 2009.

"We know some people are saying it would be difficult for Japan to host the Olympics. The JOC does not think so, however. We believe we have a great chance," Takeda said.

Illigitimate nation?

It would be very interesting to see India host the Olympics though I highly doubt it. Even though the games are a decade away, India is still a very poor country with very poor infrastructure. I'm surprised it was even nominated to host the games.

What do you have against Brazil? I don't think Brazil is any poorer than India.

Israel faces a threat constantly from Arab Nations. They shouldn't be disarmed, but they should be forced to pay some sort of fines due to their extensive damage in Lebanon.
Brazil has much worse poverty than India. Their numbers may not be as large, but their percentage of poor is huge. Go to Rio De Janeiro, and see for yourself the people living on the hills along the city. If you made those hills brown instead of green, and took away the ocean, you'd think it was Afghanistan.

Plus the Brazilian government is corrupt, and has just about legalized child prostitution. Oh yeah, Brazilians rated India low in a USA Today poll. Iran rated us the highest. But that's not that reason, until Brazil can clean up its stupidity, they shouldn't get it.

^what poll is that? i'd be interested in ratings for china

hmmm...possible japanese cities:

Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nagasaki

Indian cities:

Pune, Madras, Mumbai, New Delhi, Calcutta

kif any city in japan i hope its kyoto india would be great though. go india but then.. in the U.S. the competition was chicago, san francisco and l.a. erm... go chicago!

If I were part of voting, I'd have to consider potential problems though in India. The chances of terrorism are high, especially if people sneak in from neighboring Pukistan, or if Indian Muslims help their Paki brethren for 2 pegs of imported liquor, and a kebab.

I'm not flaming. It's fact that India is horrible at protecting its borders, and the Mumbai bombings were probably caused by people who got through the long border.

USA should let the Mexicans in. After all, the Southern portion of the Western USA is really theirs. The whites just took it over via war. Or atleast make it easier for people to become citizens, it's not like Mexicans are taking their high tier jobs.

And Mexicans going into the USA is much different from Pakistani infiltration into India. Mexicans come to get jobs, and help their family. The Pakistani's are going for terrorist reasons, and to spread hatred.

The Bangladesh Liberation War resulted in one of the largest genocides of the 20th Century. While estimates of the number of casulaties vary between 300,000 and 3,000,000, it is reasonably certain that Hindus bore a disproportionate brunt of the Pakistan Army's onslaught against the Bengali population of what was East Pakistan.

An article in Time magazine dated August 2, 1971, stated "The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred."

Senator Edward Kennedy wrote in a report that was part of Senate Committee testimony dated November 1, 1971, "Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked "H". All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad". In the same report, Senator Kennedy reported that 80% of the refugees in India were Hindus and according to numerous international relief agencies such as UNESCO and WHO the number of East Pakistani refugees at their peak in India was close to 10 million. Given that the Hindu population in East Pakistan was around 11 million in 1971, this suggests that up to 8 million, or more than 70% of the Hindu population had fled the country.

The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sydney Schanberg covered the start of the war and wrote extensively on the suffering of the East Bengalis, including the Hindus both during and after the conflict. In a syndicated column "The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored", he wrote about his return to liberated Bangladesh in 1972. "Other reminders were the yellow "H"s the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army" (by "Muslim army", meaning the Pakistan army, which had targeted Bengali Muslims as well), (Newsday, April 29th 1994).

that's why bangladesh needs indian, and chinese investment and help

i live in chi-town. and yeah, i really want chicago to get it.

ugh? asia again?

brazil or spain and i'm there

lol japan or india? i choose india ty very much. i won't have to watch events at 3 in the morning...

chicago plus has a much better transportation system than both. one big problem in sydney was that it took a long time to get to different venues. in chicago, it'll be much better connected plus there mayor daley did a lot of beautifying chicago.
yeah they haven't done s. america yet

i vote for india.

no offense to any japanese here, but i think japan is overexposed and played out like jLO.

lets let india have the limelight for a while.