Candidate cities Budapest, Los Angeles, Paris and Rome have all submitted part one of their files ahead of today's deadline as the race for the hosting rights in eight years' time heats up.

All of the submissions had to outline "vision, concept and strategy" for staging the Games with the 2024 candidature process the first to be launched after the adoption of Olympic Agenda 2020 - the IOC's "strategic roadmap" which has a heavy emphasis on sustainability, legacy and reduced costs.

All four cities have been encouraged to present projects that best match their sporting, economic, social and environmental long-term planning needs.

They have been asked to use existing facilities where possible and provide "flexibility" when picking venues to meet legacy needs and ambitions.

“Los Angeles, Rome, Budapest and Paris are all submitting projects fully in line with Olympic Agenda 2020," said Bach, who has spearheaded the initiative himself.

"It is impressive to see how they have incorporated the Olympic project into the long-term development plans of their city, region and country.

"Coming from different starting points, for all four there is a clear focus on sustainable development, legacy and in particular how the facilities are going to be used after the Olympic Games.

"We are delighted to have four extremely strong candidatures and look forward to a fascinating competition."

The handing in of the files marks one of the most important days so far in the race for the 2024 Games.

Los Angeles, which revealed its bid logo yesterday, has already unveiled its vision with its chairman Casey Wasserman and CEO Gene Sykes set to outline their proposals to the media in the American city later today.

Italian capital Rome held a launch event at the Palazzo dei Congressi Eur earlier and Paris announced details of the French bid's plans at the Philharmonie de Paris this afternoon.

Budapest has also distributed its bid documents with the Hungarian capital opting for a more low-key release.

Jacqueline Barrett, the IOC's Associate Director of Olympic Games/Olympic Candidatures, said: “Following Olympic Agenda 2020, the candidate cities are making use of an extremely high percentage of existing and temporary venues, possibly the most ever.

"The plans received indicate very thoughtful consideration of what the cities and their people need for the future.

"The IOC has significantly simplified the candidature process, symbolised by the fact that the submissions arrived for the very first time on a USB key only, instead of thousands of pages of paper documents.”

Part two of the candidature files must cover governance, legal and venue funding with a deadline of October 7 of this year.

The final part will then be on Games delivery, experience and venue legacy, which must be submitted by February 3, 2017.

At the end of each stage, the IOC will confirm that each city will transition through to the next phase.

During stage three, an IOC Evaluation Commission will make working visits to each city to study their projects in detail and issue a final report.

A host city will then be elected at the IOC Session in Peru's capital Lima in 2017.