MADRID, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Mercedes Coghen, the director of Madrid's failed bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, criticized on Sunday the decision taken by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

    Madrid lost out to Rio de Janeiro in the final vote, which was held in Copenhagen Friday. It is the second consecutive time the city has failed in an attempt to host the Games, after losing out to London four years earlier.

    However, this time Coghen finds the decision hard to take.

    "Being objective, Madrid had the best technical project and the reports recognized that. But the members of the IOC decided to give the Games to Rio because it was somewhere new," she told sports paper Marca.

    "Rio had the country's President (Lula) as the basis of its bid and the fact that its economy is doing well in the current crisis."

    "Lula showed great leadership from the start of the Rio bid and he believed in the project. Although that doesn't mean I want to put down our work, which was magnificent and very solid," she added.

    However, despite Madrid having reached the final vote on Friday after both Chicago and Tokyo had been eliminated, Coghen was unwilling to predict whether or not Madrid would be a candidate city for the 2020 Games.

    "We have to take time to reflect. At the moment everything is still too emotional to decide," she said, before criticizing the IOC.

    "We have seen that decisions are not taken objectively, that other factors influence the votes. We have to now wait for our moment," said Coghen.