The three cities hoping to win the right to host the 2020 Olympic Summer Games completed a significant step towards that goal on Monday as they lodged their bid dossiers with the International Olympic Committee.

All three cities sent high-profile delegations to IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, handing over their dossiers which they hope will ultimately lead to them convincing the majority of the more than 100 IOC members to vote for them on Sept 7 in Buenos Aires.

The three candidates are Istanbul, which put together the most credible of its bids after failing four times previously, Madrid, which is bidding to make it third time lucky after finishing third for the 2012 and second for the 2016 editions, and favorite Tokyo, the only one to have previously hosted the Games, in 1964.