Rome City Council Nixes 2024 Olympic Bid

(ATR) The Rome City Council has voted 30-12 in favor of Mayor Virginia Raggi’s motion to deny support for the Rome 2024 bid.

The council convened to address the candidature on Thursday morning in the Italian capital, following Mayor Raggi’s announcement last week that she would not support the bid.

Considering that the mayor’s Five Star Movement party holds a majority at city hall, the vote to support Raggi and nix the bid was not a surprise.

The City Council’s approval of Raggi’s motion effectively forces the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) to withdraw the Rome 2024 bid application from the International Olympic Committee.

A Rome 2024 spokesperson said a decision will be announced tomorrow, but "don’t draw any final conclusions from the vote."

CONI president Giovanni Malagò was not present in Rome on Thursday, rather attending the opening of a new building for the national rhythmic gymnastics team outside of Milan.

Adding fuel to the fire of what has been a contentious battle at times, representatives from Rome 2024 were initially invited to address the council but were later denied. Rome 2024 bid general coordinator and double Olympic gold medalist Diana Bianchedi was prevented from stating the bid’s case one last time. She proceeded to improvise a news conference with reporters.

"I was expecting to be allowed to speak to the City Council - they are being asked to vote on a dossier though it seems the councilors haven't read it," Bianchedi said. "I wrote the councilors a few days ago. They're being asked to put their signature on a project they don't know – shouldn’t they feel morally obligated or at least curious, to see what's in the dossier? It was submitted July 19th and was resent to vice mayor Frongia on August 5th.

"We have been asking them, both publicly and privately, to look into the project in depth before passing judgement," Bianchedi said.

"We submitted a written request to the city council, asking for some joint decisions to be made," she added. "We sent documentation, and then sent the documentation again on the 5th of August, but the costs can't be calculated if those decisions aren't made."

Raggi officially withheld her support for Rome’s bid calling any plans to move forward with it "irresponsible." Citing the poor economics and using slides to demonstrate a history of Games organized with huge deficits, the 37-year-old Mayor demonstrated that she believed staging the Games in Rome would be a huge risk.

Her comments came minutes after she unapologetically snubbed Malago and Italian Paralympic Committee President Luca Pancalli by arriving 35-minutes late for a planned one-hour meeting to discuss the Olympic bid.

"I still hope Rome will win this great challenge. There’s always hope," Rome 2024 bid Chief Luca di Montezemolo told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera Friday.

Since the mayor’s declaration last week, Rome 2024 has continued its fight using social media to underline the key benefits it believes support staging the Olympic Games for the second time after a memorable Olympics in 1960.

"I've staged comebacks from a 14-1 disadvantage, where the winning score was 15," Bianchedi said. "I was taught never to give up before the end. It's a sign of respect for the work already done."

CONI president Malago said earlier this week that if Rome bows out now there will not likely be another bid for at least 20 years.

Despite the support of Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, if Rome 2024 officially departs from the Summer Olympics race, it will be the second withdrawal by the Italian capital in four years.

If Rome 2024 does pull the bid tomorrow, only Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris will remain in the campaign to host the Games in 2024.

The IOC will elect the host city on September 13, 2017 in Lima, Peru.

Written by Brian Pinelli

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