Rome 2024: Italian Olympics would be "Greatest Sporting Spectacle"

(ATR) Rome 2024 bid leader Luca di Montezemolo says the Olympics in Rome would be the biggest sporting festival in the world.

"Sport, sport, sport, a big festival of sport. And at the center of our activities the athletes," di Montezemolo said. "Giving them the possibility to enjoy the culture, the beauty and the town of Rome," he continued.

Di Montezemolo described these two goals of the Roman bid to a roundtable of reporters during the ANOC general assembly in Washington, D.C. The roundtable was organized by Rome 2024 press officers David Bond and Fabio Guadagnini as well as the Italian NOC communications chief Danilo Di Tommaso.

Rome 2024 was also represented in Washington by CONI president Giovanni Malago and vice president Roberto Fabbricini.

The Rome 2024 bid team used the opportunity in Washington to introduce themselves to IOC members and IF leaders. Di Montezemolo says this is not the first time he has met IOC members as he served as team leader of Ferrari in Formula One races for several years.

"To be honest, a lot of them recognize me from Ferrari. They know me as a businessman so even if we’d never met before I know about many of them."

The goals of the Roman bid to focus activities around athletes and create a sporting festival will be supported by five key elements of the bid, di Montezemolo said.Culture, beauty, technology, sustainability and legacy are the five key elements.

Di Montezemolo says the abundance of monuments, museums and artwork in Rome will allow athletes to enjoy the experience for reasons other than sport.

"Athletes are coming from all over the world and far away countries. The athletes at the center [of the bid] gives them the opportunity to enjoy something beyond sport, the culture of Rome."

He adds that the scenic backdrop of Rome its famous locations such as the Coliseum, Trevi Fountain and potentially even the Vatican could enhance the Olympic experience.

"In other words, to give to everybody the possibility in parallel to the sport event a very special environment."

The Italian capital hosted the Summer Games once before in 1960. Those Games showcased a major technological advancement in the Olympics being the first Games broadcast internationally on television. Rome will seek to continue this legacy of using new technologies with their 2024 bid.

"We have to look ahead from now to 2024, we have nine years.

"We are working with four Rome universities already to increase the startup activity of the students," says di Montezemolo.

The former chief executive officer of Ferrari says that the sustainability of these Games is also a crucial element of the bid. Montezemolo says that nearly 70 percent of all venues are already constructed and there will be three clusters of venues in the city.

The final key element of the Roman bid is the legacy the Games would leave behind. Di Montezemolo says the bid team has made it clear since the onset of the bid what will happen with each venue once the Olympic Flame has been extinguished. He described plans for the to-be-built Olympic Village as an example of the legacy the bid would leave behind.

"We have decided and shared with the town, region, government and environmentalists to do this in an area where we have one of the largest hospitals in Rome and one of the largest universities. The village will be used to create a campus for the university and hospital to encourage students to live in the city."

Di Montezemolo says focusing on these five elements of their bid will help them defeat the tough competition from fellow bid cities Budapest, Hamburg, Los Angeles and Paris.

"For the IOC this is a very good opportunity because there are five important cities and countries bidding for the Games. But if we talk about culture, quality of the life and beauty I believe Rome can play an unbelievable role," says di Montezemolo.

Written by KevinNutley

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribersonly.