MADRID, Jan 14, 2008 - Madrid on Monday took the first formal step in its bid to stage the 2016 Olympics when it presented the IOC with a list of responses to questions on its plans for the event, the Madrid-2016 Committee said. It said a delegation that included former women's tennis world number one and four-time Grand Slam winner Arantxa Sanchez Vicario handed the questionnaire to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland. The responses to the 25 questions from the IOC were written in English and French and divided into eight chapters on themes such as finance, housing, transport and security. The list of official candidates for the 2016 Olympics is to be announced in Athens in June, and the name of the winning city will be unveiled in October 2009 in Copenhagen. Beijing will host the 2008 Games. Madrid finished a respectable third in the voting when London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics ahead of rivals Paris. Several other major cities have expressed an interest in hosting the 2016 Olympics including Prague, Rio de Janeiro, 1964 Olympic hosts Tokyo, front runners Chicago, Doha and Baku.
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