Budapest expected to pull out of 2024 Olympics running
Thursday 23 February 2017 12:57, UK
Budapest's hopes of springing a surprise in the race to host the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics appear to be over after the Hungarian government said "the only responsible decision" was to pull out.
The decision, which will be formally confirmed by Budapest's city assembly, comes after more than 260,000 people signed a petition against the bid, saying the money should be spent on hospitals and schools.
Budapest's exit leaves the field clear to Los Angeles and Paris and means the Hungarian capital becomes the fourth candidate to withdraw from bidding to host the 2024 Games, following Boston, Hamburg and Rome.
With support for the bid evaporating at home, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met Budapest Mayor Istvan Tarlos and the Hungarian Olympic Committee on Wednesday. Following that meeting, the government issued a recommendation that the bid be withdrawn.
A government statement said the bid for the Games was "an issue of national importance for Budapest and for Hungary" but the "consensus" that existed when the bid was submitted "has been dismantled".
Noting that only Los Angeles and Paris have the "required unity" to succeed, the statement added: "In this situation the only responsible decision is for Budapest and the Hungarian Olympic Committee to withdraw their bid to host the Olympics."
The bid's chairman Balazs Furjes tweeted: "Thanks for the Olympic Family for all the encouragement, experience and enthusiasm we had in this wonderful journey."
While there will be considerable disappointment among the bid's backers in Hungary that it could not continue until September, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meets in Peru to decide who will host the 2024 Games, there will be growing alarm with Olympic circles at another bid collapsing.
Los Angeles was only chosen by the United States Olympic Committee as its pick when the people of Boston voted against a bid, Hamburg's citizens also rejected it in a 2015 referendum and Rome withdrew last year when a new mayor refused to support a bid.
This followed a similar pattern for the 2022 Winter Games, when voters in Krakow, Oslo and Stockholm rejected proposed bids, leaving the IOC to pick between Kazakhstan's Almaty and Beijing, with the latter winning the right to host a Winter Games only 14 years after a Summer Games.
With reports emerging from Rio about the legacy of last summer's Games and the Olympic brand sullied by Russia's state-sponsored doping at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, these are worrying times for IOC president Thomas Bach, who campaigned on a promise to reduce the financial burden on host cities.
The German's "Agenda 2020" reforms have been much trumpeted since his election in 2013 but have so far completely failed to address concerns that the Games are just too big, a situation not helped by last year's IOC vote to add five more sports to the programme for Tokyo 2020.
