 This new Olympic stadium would be necessary as Stanford Stadium, the originally planned venue for athletics and the ceremonies for the 2012 bid, has been replaced by a smaller football stadium.On July 26, 2006, the USOC officially named San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago as the three US finalists for the 2016 Olympics, dropping Philadelphia and Houston.On September 22, 2006, San Francisco submitted a report responding to the USOC questionnaire that was distributed to the remaining three U.S. candidate cities.