The final day of campaigning to host the 2020 Olympics started with Madrid saying its proposal based on economic austerity can become the new model for future games.

Madrid began the three cities' final push to lure International Olympic Committee members' votes on Saturday. Tokyo and Istanbul are scheduled to hold news conferences later Friday.

"We believe that having a responsible budget represents the new way to understand the games," Madrid Mayor Ana Botella said. "We believe that it's a new model to organize the games at a time marked by political and economic turbulence around the world."

Spain's economic struggles, highlighted by a 27 percent unemployment rate, have been seen as the main weakness of Madrid's bid heading into the IOC meetings. Tokyo has fending off questions about the radioactive leak in the Fukushima nuclear plant, while Istanbul has had to deal with concerns about the civil war in neighboring Syria.

Madrid officials have been trying to assure the IOC members who will vote on Saturday that the economic problems don't pose a significant challenge for the games and that having a proposal based on economic austerity is something positive for the future of the Olympic movement.

"We are proposing a new model of games which are adjusted to the current times," Botella said. "We believe that having this type of budget is something really good for the future because otherwise there would be many cities in the world which would not be capable of hosting the games."

Madrid, in its third-straight attempt to win the bid, claims that it has one of the lowest Olympic budgets ever, taking advantage that 80 percent of venues are in place in a compact layout.

"We are trying to show that our candidacy is adjusting to what the Olympic movement wants," Madrid bid leader Alejandro Blanco said.

Botella said that Spain's three layers of government will have to spend a total of 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) in the next seven years, "which is perfectly possible knowing that conditions in Spain are beginning to improve."

The 2014 Sochi Games will be the most expensive in Olympic history, and the 2016 Rio Games has also been seen as an expensive endeavor for Brazil.

"We have a new model of games which could become the norm in the world that we live now," Botella said.

 (For more sports news and updates, follow Ahram Online Sports on Twitter at @AO Sports and on Facebook at AhramOnlineSports)