Rome Olympics bid suffers blow as mayor says ‘No’

Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi said her government will not support the city’s bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games Wednesday basically ending Rome’s Olympic hopes and further solidifying the competition as a two city race between Los Angeles and Paris.

The city’s new mayor Virginia Raggi, who entered office in a major win for the up-and-coming anti-establishment Five Star Movement, has faced a number of obstacles since her landmark election in June, including many she put up herself-like the appointment of a garbage czar whose hands weren’t exactly clean.

Italian Olympic Committee president Giovanni Malago has said the bid would fail without the city council’s backing.

The Italian Olympic chief has reacted angrily to the Rome mayor’s decision to reject the city’s bid to host the 2024 Games, and has vowed to fight on.

So which city will host them?

Renzi had launched the Olympic bid even though Rome at the time found itself at the centre of a series of public corruption scandals that came to be known as Mafia Capitale, raising questions about whether it could pull off a “clean” Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee will elect the host at a vote in Lima, Peru in September 2017, with Paris considered the favourite after unsuccessfully bidding for the 1992, 2008 and 2012 Games. “We want sports available to everyone”.

Imagine that – prioritizing the long-term needs of the people who live in a city over the short-term buzz and high-roller adulation that comes with hosting the games. Despite the unknown of what will ultimately happen with Rome, there’s undeniable excitement from the LA84 Foundation, which serves as a legacy to the 1984 Summer Games with more than $230 million invested in Southern California communities over the last three decades. We have nothing against the Olympics and sport. but we don’t want sport to be an excuse for more rivers of cement in the city.

She produced figures on the debts that previous Olympic host cities have incurred.

“This city is unlivable”, Raggi said.

Los Angeles – which is one of the best cities this country has to offer, and one of the best that the world has to offer – is now the likely favorite to land the 2024 Summer Olympics. “No to cathedrals in the desert”, she said, referring to unfinished venues from other sporting bids.

The bid is 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.

Hamburg, Germany, and Boston previously withdrew their bids for 2024.