ATHENS - Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro were named on Wednesday as candidate cities to host the 2016 Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said.

A sculpture representing people carring the Olympics rings is seen in front of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne. Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid will compete for the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, the International Olympic Committee said June 4, 2008. [Agencies]

Qatar's Doha, which was rated by the IOC's working group as the third best overall bid, Azerbaijan's Baku and the Czech capital Prague fell at the first hurdle.

"All the bids were of a very high standard," said IOC President Jacques Rogge.

"It is a tribute to the health of the Olympic movement that the field was so strong. I congratulate the candidate cities and I hope that those cities which were unsuccessful this time have benefited from the process."

The candidate cities must now compile an in-depth file of their Olympic project and submit themselves to a visit by the IOC's Evaluation Commission. The election of the host city will take place on October 2, 2009, at the IOC Session in Copenhagen.

"We wanted to make the next phase and we made a good bid but it is always a relief to hear your name read out," U.S. IOC member Bob Ctvrtlik, who was with the Chicago bid, told Reuters.

Tokyo, hosts of the 1964 Games, topped the IOC working group's overall technical evaluation with Madrid second. Chicago and Doha tied for third with Rio in fourth place, the report said.

"We are delighted with the evaluation but we have not seen it yet and we must now analyze it very carefully to strengthen our weak points and make our strong points stronger," Tokyo bid chief Ichiro Kono told Reuters.

DOHA DIVIDE

IOC executive board members, who picked the candidate cities, had been divided for weeks whether Doha should be included in the shortlist.