Budapest Wraps Up Bid

"The Budapest master plan demonstrates the IOC’s Agenda 2020 reforms for the Olympic Games are valid and viable for mid-size global cities like Budapest… Budapest will be a better city with a better future and better facilities for sport as the result of bidding for the 2024 Olympic Games…this will strengthen Budapest’s capacity for hosting major international sporting events …Our dream to host the Olympic Games in Budapest remains alive," Balázs Fürjes, leader, Budapest 2024 Olympic Games Bid.

Budapest 2024 Bid Charts New Direction & Opportunities for Hungarian Capital and Olympic Movement; Lays Foundations for Future Olympic Games

●Bringing the Spectacle of the Olympic Games & Sport back to Heart of Cities and back to the People

●Hungary will continue to deliver new venues, facilities, affordable housing and Games planning experience planned by the Budapest Bid enhancing the opportunity for future Budapest Olympic Games

●The plan demonstrates faster travel times and the lowest priced tickets for Olympic Games athletes, fans, media and officials in Budapest

●Picture perfect Olympic Games in most beautiful natural settings for sport, including UNESCO World Heritage sites and ceremonies on majestic River Danube sets a precedent for future sporting events

The Budapest 2024 Olympic Games Bid will propel the development of Budapest forward by decades and demonstrates the viability of mid-sized city Olympic Games, with faster travel times to venues, lower ticket prices and full stadia creating an electrifying city atmosphere and Games experience like no other.

The Budapest Bid also delivered meaningful legacies of new facilities, parkland, affordable accommodation and new venues that lay the foundations for further development of Budapest as a mid-sized global city capable of hosting major international sporting championships, including the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

The master plan for the 2024 Olympic Games in Budapest was aligned with the city’s finances and infrastructure capabilities, and highlighted Budapest as a potential Olympic host city.

"Our hopes of hosting the Olympic Games are still strong. We remain the only nation in the top ten Olympic medal winning countries that has not hosted the Games, and we continue to believe in our mid-size city model and hope to have the chance one day to prove the case" said Budapest Bid leader, Balázs Fürjes.

The Budapest Bid was designed around the vision of sports, urban, and financial planners for the long-term development of Budapest, and the IOC’s Agenda 2020 reforms to reduce cost, complexity and risk while maintaining the unique global and emotional appeal of the Games in today’s uncertain global environment.

"The Budapest 2024 master plan demonstrates that staging the Olympic Games is viable for mid-sized global cities like Budapest" said Fürjes, speaking for the first time since recently announcing the withdrawal of the bid following a collapse of political support.

OLYMPIC GAMES

Budapest’s new approach to staging the Games in mid-sized cities captured the imagination and attention of the Olympic Movement and the international community as the innovative bid of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games host city selection process, according to senior Olympic Family and IOC members.

"Budapest was humbled and honoured to receive enormous support from across the Olympic Movement for its innovative plans to bring the spectacle of the Olympic Games and sport back to the heart of the city and back to the people" according to Fürjes.

After rigorous examination of Budapest’s technical, financial, governance, venue, legacy and sustainability and other core Games planning areas, the Bid was selected by the IOC to go through to the third and final stage of the host city selection process, along with Paris and Los Angeles.

"This taught us about the scale, complexity and challenges of putting on the Olympic Games, and also about the opportunities we have to learn from this experience to create a better city and to stage major international sporting events in the future, including the Olympic Games" Fürjes said.

"The Budapest Bid model takes the Games to global mid-sized cities and provides new destinations and markets for the Olympic Movement in architecturally, culturally and environmentally beautiful new and historic settings with modern infrastructure like Budapest that are popular with young people. Budapest’s size and culture will make the Games a continuous Olympic celebration. This will reinforce the role and relevance of sport in modern society, and make the Games more accessible to people everywhere" Balázs Fürjes, chairman Budapest 2024 Olympic Games Bid.

NEW OLYMPIC GAMES EXPERIENCE

The Budapest blueprint provides a new direction for the Olympic Movement in which the entire host city is activated around Olympic sports and festivals with all key competition, broadcast, training, transport and accommodation services and facilities located near to the city centre.

"The whole Olympic experience would be new and unique in Budapest" said Hungarian Olympic champion and former Budapest Bid sports and venues director, Attila Mizsér.

"Under our Games-time plans, Budapest would become one great Olympic Park with venues and live sites set against a backdrop of the majestic Danube Riverfront and a breath-taking cityscape of spectacular World Heritage sites. This would create a new, city-wide environment and experience for the Olympic Movement, for Olympic Games clients and for sport" Mizsér said.

GAMES OF INNOVATION & INSPIRATION

The Budapest master plan included innovations and solutions designed to address key Games priorities such as city atmosphere, transport, ticketing, youth engagement, social inclusion and Games costs.

The Budapest mid-sized Olympic Games model includes:

● Games that are financially responsible, keeping within Budapest’s financial and infrastructure capabilities and long term development goals

● 27 venues, 25 sports & 34 disciplines within a 10 kilometre city radius

● Games with exceptionally quick travel times ​4 - averaging just 12 minutes from the Olympic

● Village to venues in Budapest - tailored around the needs of competitors and spectators

● All seven venue clusters bound by the Danube and within a six-kilometre radius of the city centre

● Games that engage young people with the world’s biggest outdoor music festival, affordable accommodation and lower ticket prices to help fill venues and enhance the Olympic Games experience and image

● Games for the nation, placing Olympic sport within 90 minutes of 90 per cent of Hungary’s entire population, with an integrated city and nationwide festival programme

● Games for all Olympic nations and all athletes in one spacious, well equipped Olympic Village on the Danube riverfront, adjacent to the Olympic Park and close to training facilities and competition venues

● Games with venues surrounded by some of the most beautiful natural settings for sport, including UNESCO World Heritage sites

● Games with Government legislation guaranteeing funding of all Games costs, land, delivery bodies, and timely and efficient visa entry for Olympic Family and Games personnel

BETTER BUDAPEST

The Budapest bid also set the foundations to accelerate the development of the capital city forward by decades with new urban upgrades, facilities, affordable housing, stakeholder collaborations and sustainable thinking.

"The Agenda 2020 priorities for the Olympic Games, focusing on cost containment, sustainability, long-term development and youth participation are also highly relevant for city and urban planning" Fürjes said.

With comprehensive long term business plans for all new sports venues, infrastructure and regeneration projects, the Olympic Games Bid will be the catalyst for urban renewal and improved accessibility and amenity in the city.

These include a major new city park and new and upgraded green spaces around many of the key Games venues. Reconnecting the River Danube with the people and preserving its historic foreshore remains a key priority for the city reinforced by Games planning.

The location of many of the Games venues and the Village close to the city centre provided the opportunity for an enhanced Games experience and convenience for the athletes, spectators and media - a unique proposition not seen in recent Olympic and Paralympic Games.

NEW SPORTING FUTURE

The Olympic Bid has been the catalyst for new sport and recreation and community venue development in Budapest.

Examples include the newly opened Danube Arena built for the FINA 2017 World Swimming Championships later this year in Budapest, one of the world’s biggest sporting events and venue for the swimming and diving competitions at the 2024 Olympic Games if the Budapest bid had been successful.

Budapest’s new swimming showpiece will be a centre for elite aquatics and for the public, driving increased participation in sport amongst young people and healthier lifestyles.

The new Danube Arena has already had a major influence on surrounding neighbourhoods with new jobs, services and opportunities for local communities and stronger barrier protection against possible flooding from the nearby River Danube.

"This is the start of our legacy. All our proposed venues will have long-term benefits and will be used by the community and for sport" Fürjes said.

Olympic Bid related projects will also help to address priority social and economic issues in the city.

These include the redevelopment of the site planned for the Olympic Village, which will become part of a nationwide accommodation and housing programme for students, young professionals and public sector workers, and catalyst for one of the biggest transformations in Budapest for decades.

The bid has also been a vehicle to guide Hungary towards a state of improved accessibility and genuine integration of disabled people, with new disability friendly city infrastructure, venues and transport services under development.

"The Budapest Bid was more than about sport. It was also about improving the lives and opportunities of the residents of the city and beyond" Fürjes said.

OLYMPIC OPPORTUNITIES

Named after the Hungarian modern Olympic founder, the Kemeny Ferenc programme is a medium-term project providing world-class sporting and training facilities and other amenities that will continue to be built as a direct consequence of the Budapest bid. This will benefit Hungary’s highly successful athletes and a new generation of sporting hopefuls, and provide venues and opportunities to host major international events, including the Olympic Games.

The Budapest model in particular offers a message of hope for other cities with dreams and ambitions of hosting the Olympic Games.

"Budapest has delivered a real alternative Games model for the Olympic Movement - a model that provides the Olympic Movement with a new generation of potential mid-sized host cities and shows that you don’t have to be mega city to host big sporting events" Fürjes said.

"The Budapest Bid shows that mid-sized cities across the world can, once again, be considered genuine candidates to host future Games and are very much part of the Olympic Family."

CONCLUSION - THANK YOU EVERYONE

"The Olympic Movement creates hope and the world needs hope and the Olympic Games. Budapest’s Olympic dreams remain alive" Balázs Fürjes said.

Hungary is proud to have partnered the IOC on this historic seventh bid to bring the Olympic Games to Budapest and central Europe for the first time, according to the Budapest Bid leader.

"On behalf of the entire Budapest Bid team I would like to thank President Bach and the IOC members for their support of Budapest and the Agenda 2020 reforms, which have made it possible for mid-sized global cities like Budapest to bid for the Games again" Balázs Fürjes said.

Budapest’s innovative bid for the 2024 Olympic Games was formulated with consideration for all the key Olympic stakeholders, especially the athletes, the international sports federations, national Olympic Committees, the world’s media, and, of course, the billions of people, young and old, around the world who love sport.

The Budapest Bid leader said his team will always cherish the bonds of friendship and relationships formed during the course of the Bid, and saluted all the cities involved in the 2024 bid process.

"No peace time project challenges a city or a country like an Olympic bid, and no other project brings so many legacies and opportunities for a city and a country to contribute to the world’s biggest global event and gathering of nations united in sport" Fürjes said.

Budapest is proud to have worked with the IOC to develop a new Olympic Games model for mid-sized cities that will enable the Games to evolve and to spread to more cities, ensuring the Games remain more accessible and relevant to more young people and cities world-wide.

Credit must go to the IOC and IPC for the spirit of collaboration and co-operation and sharing of knowledge and information on Games operations and planning, according to Fürjes.

"I would like to express my deep gratitude to the IOC staff, the international sporting federations, national Olympic committees and wider Olympic Family for the expertise and support we have received in helping to design our Olympic bid masterplan" he said.

The Bid leader said Hungary was a longtime friend and believer in the Olympic Movement and would continue to support the IOC and the Olympic Family in whatever ways it could.

"Hungary fell in love with the Olympic Movement at first sight more than 120 years ago, when we offered to host the first Games of the modern Olympic era in 1896, and it has been an enduring love affair for us ever since" Fürjes said.

"The Olympic Movement creates hope and the world needs hope and the Olympic Games" he said,

Budapest is a city of sport and a city that has been shaped and developed around sport and still hopes to stage the Olympic Games.

"Budapest may not be a mega city, but we have a giant heart when it comes to sport, especially Olympic sport, which has united us in good times and times of hardship and struggle, and we will look for opportunities to host the Games again when appropriate" he said.

"Budapest’s Olympic dreams remain alive."

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