The International Olympic Committee said today it had received formal applications from Baku, Azerbaijan; Chicago; Doha, Qatar; Madrid, Spain; Prague, Czech Republic; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Tokyo.

Thursday was the deadline for submission of applications by national Olympic committees.

The field represents candidates from North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

"I expect the competition to be one of the most intense ever," said Tsunekazu Takeda, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee.

The host city will be selected by the IOC on Oct. 2, 2009, at its session in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Before then, the candidates will go through a two-stage bid procedure.

The cities must reply to a detailed IOC questionnaire by Jan. 14, 2008. The IOC executive board will select a short list of finalist cities in June 2008.

Full bid files must be submitted to the IOC by Feb. 12, 2009. An IOC evaluation commission will visit the cities in May and June of 2009 and publish a report assessing the bids one month before the vote.

The 2016 campaign follows the high-profile race for the 2012 Olympics, which featured five cities. London defeated Paris in the final round of a contest that also included Madrid, Moscow and New York.

Chicago is considered an early front-runner because the United States hasn't hosted the Summer Games since Atlanta in 1996. Rio, which staged the Pan American Games in July, is bidding to become the first South American city to host the Olympics, a strong selling point with the IOC.

Tokyo, which hosted the 1964 Olympics, would take the games back to Asia after Beijing in 2008.

Madrid, which finished third in the 2012 voting, is mounting another attempt to bring the Olympics to Spain for the first time since Barcelona in 1992. It could be at a disadvantage because the 2012 Olympics will be held in Europe, and the IOC may be reluctant to award back-to-back games to the continent.