IOC Officials Meet to Decide Venue for 2020 Summer Olympics

As the torch relay traverses Britain ahead of the July 27, 2012 opening of the London Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is looking much further ahead: Where will the Olympic flame burn eight years from now?

Against a backdrop of global financial turmoil and political uncertainty, IOC leaders meet in Quebec City this week to select a shortlist of finalists for the 2020 Summer Games.

It boils down to a risk assessment of the five cities in contention Istanbul, Madrid, Tokyo, Doha and Baku, Azerbaijan.

The IOC executive board likely will reduce the field to three, possibly four, finalists. Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid look certain to make the cut, with Baku a longshot and Doha the big question mark.

The IOC's three-day meeting in Quebec comes during the SportAccord conference, an industry convention attended by thousands of delegates. Also on the IOC agenda: the progress in negotiations with the US Olympic Committee on resolving their long-standing revenue-sharing dispute; the possibility of Saudi Arabia sending women athletes to the Olympics for the first time; the status of Kuwait and Kosovo; and the ethics probe involving IOC member Pal Schmitt, who resigned as president of Hungary last month in a plagiarism scandal.