This time, mass is said. Giovanni Malago, the president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), drew a definitive line on Tuesday October 11 on Rome's candidacy for the 2024 Games. The transalpine leader had called a press conference. He confirmed that the project was indeed buried, even if it is only “on hold”.
“I wrote today to the International Olympic Committee to interrupt the Rome 2024 journey,” said Giovanni Malago. According to a press release sent the same day, the IOC “took note” of the Italian capital’s decision. The Olympic organization did not really comment on the announcement, contenting itself with specifying that its candidatures commission would debate it later to analyze its significance.
For Giovanni Malago, the blow is hard. The president of CONI makes no secret of it: this second consecutive withdrawal, after Rome's withdrawal from the race for the 2020 Games, will be long and difficult to erase. “This is a very serious renunciation and a great disappointment. I have always said that this project was like a table that needed three legs, CONI, the government and the municipality, to support it. One of these feet ended up missing, for ideological and demagogic reasons. I must interrupt the process eleven months from its conclusion and after three years of work. It’s a shame because our project was a winning project. »
Giovanni Malago compares the situation in Rome to that of Vancouver in the 70s. The Canadian city withdrew its candidacy for the 1980 Winter Games six months before the vote. “They paid a high price,” suggests the IOC president, explaining that Vancouver then had to wait 30 years before regaining favor in the eyes of the IOC and organizing the Games in 2010.
Rome will probably not have to wait two or three decades before rebuilding its credible image as an Olympic candidate. In these times when the number of applicants is shrinking, all ambitions are welcome. Giovanni Malago has already announced his intention to propose Milan's candidacy to host the IOC session in 2019. "A first step", the CONI president wants to believe. He claims to have spoken about it last week with Thomas Bach and Christophe De Kepper, the director of the IOC. The idea would have seemed excellent to them.
The Italian leader also confided, during his press conference, that the position of president of the organizing committee for the 2024 Games would have been entrusted, in the event of victory of the Italian file, to Nerio Alessandri, the founder and president of the Technogym company.
