Hungary to Withdraw Olympic Bid

(ATR) Los Angeles and Paris will go to Lima as the only two bidders for the 2024 Olympics.

Budapest will be withdrawing its bid for the 2024 Games a Hungarian government spokesperson said according to international media reports.

Today, Hungarian president Viktor Orban met with the Mayor of Budapest and the president of the Hungarian Olympic Committee (MOB) to discuss the fate of the bid. The Budapest City Assembly must vote on the decision to make the withdrawal official, according to a report from the AP.

A government spokesperson told Hungarian news outlet MTI in a statement that bidding for the Olympics was a "national issue."

"In recent months, the earlier unity has broken down and the issue of the Olympics has turned from a national issue into a party issue. Opposition parties are responsible for this, those who backtracked on their earlier decision (to back the bid)," the spokesperson said.

Considered a longshot to secure the 2024 hosting nominations, Budapest trumpeted a compact Olympic bid it said was only possible from the Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms.

Budapest 2024 toldAround the Ringsit would not comment on the situation until a statement came from the MOB. However, bid leader Balazs Furjes wrote "thanks for the Olympic Family for all the encouragement, experience and enthusiasm we had in this wonderful journey" on his twitter page.

In recent weeks over 266,000 signatures were collected by Hungarian citizens forcing a referendum on the bid. Budapest 2024 leaders quickly said the "unity" of the bid was broken through the successful referendum challenge, but fought to continue the bid's viability.

The withdrawal of Budapest's candidacy means that for the second straight bid cycle the IOC will decide the host of the Olympic Games from only two candidate cities. Originally five cities, Boston, Budapest, Hamburg, Paris, and Rome set out to host the 2024 Olympics, the first full cycle under Olympic Agenda 2020. Boston was the first city to pull out after lack of public support and was replaced by Los Angeles. Hamburg withdrew from the race following an unsuccessful public referendum and Rome left after support from the municipal government dried up.

The IOC did not return requests for comment on the situation.

With two cities left in the 2024 race, speculation has emerged if the IOC would award the 2024 and 2028 Olympics simultaneously to a combination of Los Angeles and Paris. IOC President Thomas Bach embraced the speculation saying he "welcomed the public discussion," on the matter.

"I like it that people are talking in this way about the Olympic candidature procedure. It shows that people are caring. This we appreciate very much," Bach said to the AP.

Still, support for the matter is not uniform within the IOC. Vice President John Coates told ATRthat any changes to the bidding procedure would require a vote during the IOC Session and needed to be vetted legally.

"You’d have to be very careful that you are not changing the conditions upon which the cities bid," Coates said.

"They understood there would be one winner. If there is to be an opportunity to look at the second place getter that clearly has to be after the vote."

"I would think legally it mustn’t be allowed to influence the vote in any way. I think that would be wrong."

Written by Aaron Bauer

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