Rio de Janeiro will host the first Olympics in South America in August, but it first applied to be an Olympic host city candidate at least 89 years ago.
Brazil was one of eight nations that applied to host the 1936 Games ahead of a 1927 International Olympic Committee session, four years ahead of the host city vote, according to minutes from that session provided by the IOC’s Olympic Studies Centre.
The minutes, written in French, show eight applications:
Alexandria (Egypt)
Barcelona (Spain)
Berlin (Germany)
Budapest (Hungary)
Helsinki (Finland)
Lausanne (Switzerland)
Milan or Rome (Italy)
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
By 1931, IOC files show that 12 cities had officially applied to host the 1936 Olympics, but Rio de Janeiro was no longer part of the field:
Alexandria
Barcelona
Berlin
Budapest
Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Cologne (Germany)
Dublin (Ireland)
Frankfurt (Germany)
Helsinki
Lausanne
Nuremberg (Germany)
Rome
“There is no further mention of [the Rio 1936 bid] or of a withdrawal in the minutes of subsequent years (until 1931 when the host city was elected),” the IOC Olympic Studies Centre said in an email.