Only Los Angeles and Paris remain after Budapest drops 2024 Olympic bid

Only Los Angeles and Paris remain after Budapest drops 2024 Olympic bid

Does anyone want to host the Olympics?

As of February 24, 2017 only Los Angeles and Paris remain in the running.

The United States Olympic Committee withdrew Boston as its proposed bid city due to cost issues the region had. The Boston Globe had reported that the USOC was pressing Boston’s Mayor Martin J. Walsh to guarantee that the city would be the final backstop for Olympic cost overruns or revenue shortfalls. This is when Los Angeles became the fallback option for the United States Olympic Committee. Earlier on January 8, 2015 the United States Olympic Committee had passed over Los Angeles and selected Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Games.

Five candidate cities were announced by the IOC on September 16, 2015.  These bid cities were: Budapest, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Paris and Rome.

The people of Hamburg, Germany voted 51.6% to 48.4% to withdraw the city’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics on November 29, 2015. The decision meant that only Paris, Los Angeles, Rome and Budapest remained.

The Italian National Olympic Committee withdrew Rome as a bid host city on October 11, 2016, because of financial issues.

This left only Los Angeles, Paris, and Budapest in the running for the Games.

On February 22, 2017 Budapest has withdrawn from its bid to hos the 2024 games. The IOC will select the host city in September 2017.

Statement from the Budapest 2024 Athletes’ Committee

It is impossible to explain how sad and disappointed we are. Our country has suffered a great loss with the end of Hungary’s Olympic and Paralympic dream. In the home straight of this unique, global competition, we have been forced to give up the fight.

We have all experienced first-hand that it is most painful to have to leave the race just before the finish line. Our goal was within sight, and we had a genuine chance of victory in a tight battle. It is therefore particularly agonising that Budapest will not be able to participate in the final test, decision time in Lima.

We have been struck a huge blow. Not just us, all of Budapest and the entire country, too. If Budapest had hosted the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we would have seen healthier, more athletic and happier people on the streets and on the sports fields in just a few years’ time. The Olympics would have given our society and our sporting life new momentum, and not just because more Olympic and Paralympic champions would have grown up in the coming decades, but because children would have taken greater interest in sport and found greater joy in physical exercise.

We all know that we cannot lose our faith even in defeat. We are athletes, so we have no choice: We will not quit! We have contributed to the creation of the bid materials and assisted the team responsible for preparing the bid with our advice. We have observed at close quarters the huge amount of work that went into the bid and have intimate knowledge of the fantastic Hungarian plans and visions that so impressed to IOC. We therefore remain hopeful that it will not be too long before the Hungarian capital launches another bid in the steadfast belief that Budapest will one day be a worthy venue for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The Athletes’ Committee of the Budapest 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Bid

Ágnes Kovács, Chair, György Kárpáti, Honorary Chair
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