Rome bows out of bidding to host 2020 Olympics
The city of Rome has stepped back from making a bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games as it does not have the required amount of government support necessary to make the event a success.
The Italian city of Rome made the announcement today, as it was the last opportunity to submit the bid for hosting the 2020 Olympics bid to the International Olympics Committee.
Overall, there are now five cities that are the official candidates for the staging of the Olympic Games in 2020. These include Tokyo of Japan and the city of Qatar, Doha, both of whom had made their submissions to the IOC two days before the deadline. The
remaining three cities that have handed in their documents today comprise the Spanish city of Madrid, Istanbul of Turkey as well as Baku of Azerbaijan.
The Premier of Italy, Mario Monti, explained that his government did not see it was feasible to back the bid for hosting the 2020 Olympic Games because the financial costs for staging the Games were too high for the country which is facing economic crisis.
The estimated costs of hosting the Olympic Games in Rome came out to be $12.5-billion. As a result, the parliament of Italy had taken a unanimous decision to step down from making the bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games.
The Vice President of the IOC, Mario Pescante, expressed himself in the following manner while commenting on the stance of the Italian premier about the 2020 Olympics bid, “We spent hours talking… We have to resign ourselves to the fact that for at least
10 more years, we won't talk anymore about having the games in Italy.”
The city of Rome can make the bid to host the 2024 Games in the future but no such statement has come from the Italian quarters yet. Even if Rome tries to go for the 2024 Olympic Games, it would be hard to put to offer the best bid as other interested cities
will pose tough competition. The other countries that are interested in hosting the Olympics in 2024 are United States, France and South Africa.
Tags: