Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi on Wednesday said no to Rome’s 2024 Olympic bid, sinking it.
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“It would be irresponsible for us to support this candidacy”, said Raggi, who took over in June. She said Rome’s focus and finances should be aimed at dealing with a wide array of problems facing a city with a $14.6 billion debt.
Raggi’s decision means only Paris, Los Angeles and Budapest are left in the running to stage the 2024 games. Boston was the first to falter, followed swiftly by Hamburg-and now Rome’s new mayor has axed its bid for what would’ve been its first games since 1960.
Raggis rejection comes after then-Premier Mario Monti stopped Romes plans to bid for the 2020 Olympics because of financial concerns.
Raggis rejection was another stinging blow for the IOCs Olympic Agenda 2020 program, which was created to make bidding for and hosting the games more flexible and more affordable.
As a face of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, Raggi had campaigned on bringing “legality and transparency” to city hall, making opposition to the bid part of her platform.
A city hall official confirmed Raggi’s intention to reject the bid on Wednesday morning, Reuters reported. She said she was merely being consistent with her campaign position.
In a bid to ease the financial burden on host cities, notably thanks to a “significant financial contribution from the IOC”, the International Olympic Committee launched “Olympic Agenda 2020” – described as a “strategic roadmap for the Olympic movement”. “We don’t want sport to be an excuse for more rivers of cement in the city”. Bass argues that having held the games in 1984, LA is in the driver’s seat for 2024.
The bid had been slated to be centered around Rome’s historic monuments: a cycling sprint alongside the Roman Forum, beach volleyball at the Circus Maximus and the marathon passing through St. Peter’s Square and finishing under the Arch of Constantine.
Los Angeles replaced Boston as the U.S. candidate in August 2015 after a collapse in local support for the latter.
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“We can see what the last “big events” that were supposed to revive the country have left us with: the unfinished construction site of the 2009 World Swimming Championships in Rome, an abandoned infrastructure of the 2006 Winter Games in Turin”. Many politicians and taxpayers were scared off by the billions spent by Russian Federation on the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Her Administration has suffered a spate of resignations, some of her appointees are being investigated for alleged abuse of office and the council is gripped by a sense of paralysis.
