Raggi, a member of the 5-Star Movement, who strongly opposed the idea of hosting the games, today announced in a statement that she would not support the bid, effectively ending it; any bid has to receive support from local government officials.
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With Rome’s mayor saying Wednesday that she will not support her city’s bid, Los Angeles’ chances for hosting the Olympics in 2024 may have gotten stronger.
“Rome, Paris, Los Angeles and Budapest are the cities hoping to stage the Games in eight years” time.
Raggi clarified the missed appointment with the Rome 2024 team, “I had a setback and I was a few minutes late, as I entered the building the president Malagò preferred leave, there was time (to meet) and were not 40 minutes late”, she explained. The move leaves Paris, Los Angeles and Budapest in contention.
The “Olympic Agenda 2020” reforms were aimed at avoiding a repeat of the bidding for the 2022 Winter Games, which was depleted by the withdrawal of four cities – Stockholm; Oslo; Lviv, Ukraine; and Krakow, Poland – for political or financial reasons.
Rome, which last hosted the games in 1960, was more than capable of pulling it off again, said the head of the Italian Olympic Committee, Giovanni Malago.
Its very upsetting, Rome bid vice president Luca Pancalli said.
During the mayoral election campaign, Raggi said the city had other priorities but did not definitively back away from the bid.
Previously, the city hosted rowing at the Long Beach Marine Stadium in the 1932 Olympics and in the 1984 Olympics hosted archery at El Dorado Park, fencing at the Long Beach Convention Center, volleyball at the Long Beach Arena and sailing at the Long Beach Shoreline Marina.
With last month’s Rio Olympics, the IOC is also coming off the most controversial Games in at least 40 years. “We don’t want sport to be an excuse for more rivers of cement in the city”.
“We only finished paying off the debts for hosting the 1990 world swimming championships in 2015”, she said.
“It would be irresponsible for us to support this candidacy”.
When Rio won the bid, the Brazilian government estimated hosting the games would cost almost $3 billion.
People aren’t buying the Olympic hype anymore, for two main reasons – they don’t believe diving into the red to host the games will solve any of their chronic problems, and they’re getting exhausted of waiting for real progress on fixing those problems to begin with. Elio Lannutti, a leading figure within the Five Star party, recently wrote that the Olympics would “debt and act as a powerful arm of massive distraction” for Rome.
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“This city is unlivable”, Raggi said. “Almost all the Olympics in the past had budget overruns”, Ms. Raggi said.
