Bids

The four other candidate cities were Rome, Cape Town, Stockholm, and Buenos Aires. Six other cities had applied, but were turned down by the IOC in 1996. These cities were Istanbul, Lille, Rio de Janeiro, San Juan, Seville, and Saint Petersburg.
Athens won every round of voting and easily beat Rome in round 5, the final vote. Round 2 was to settle a tie break between Cape Town and Buenos Aires from round 1.