Paris was set to enter the race for the 2024 Olympics on Tuesday and with more cities watching it could become a classic narrowly fought contest. France is to use the annual Olympic Day to proclaim its bid at a press conference. On the same day Budapest's city council will vote to become the fifth competitor. The US city of Boston, Rome and Germany's Hamburg are already lobbying for International Olympic Committee votes. Bids must be officially submitted by September 15 this year and the IOC will only make a decision at a congress in Lima on September 15, 2017. Paris and Boston are considered frontrunners. The United States has not staged a summer Olympics since 1996 while 2024 would be the centenary of the last time the Games were in the French capital.