Budapest city council approves bid for 2024 Olympics

VIENNA: Budapest’s city council approved Tuesday launching a bid for the Hungarian capital to host the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics.

The idea will now pass to the Hungarian parliament in July where avid sports fan and Prime Minister Viktor Orban is likely to ensure it passes.

“The Olympics can only accelerate the development of the Hungarian capital. Budapest can only win from this,” said mayor Istvan Tarlos.

“The Olympics will improve the already excellent image of Budapest from the point of view of tourism,” he said.

Cities have until September 15 to enter bids and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will make a decision at a congress in Lima on September 15, 2017.

The US city of Boston, Rome and Germany’s Hamburg are already lobbying for IOC votes, while Paris - a likely favourite together with Boston - was expected to throw its hat into the ring later Tuesday.

Other possible candidates include the Azerbaijan capital Baku, which is currently hosting the first European Games, and the Qatari capital Doha.

Last week the Hungarian Olympic Committee (MOB) unanimously voted to support what it called a “feasible and profitable” project, and the submission of a declaration of intent to make an official bid.

A study prepared for the MOB indicated that hosting the Olympics could generate 1,100 billion forints (3.5 billion euros, $4.1 billion dollars) in revenues, well above the 774 billion forints in required investments.

The document proposed that the Games’ main location - incorporating an Olympic village and media centre - be built on an island on the river Danube in the south of the 1.7million-strong city.

A state-of-the-art swimming complex under construction and a planned 68,000-capacity football stadium, due to host several games at the UEFA Euro 2020 football tournament, would also likely form key part of the bid.

Sites in other Hungarian cities would also be considered, according to the MOB’s study.

The 9.9-million-strong central European country, a founding member of the IOC, is in eighth place globally in terms of the number of medals won - 168 gold, 148 silver, 170 bronze.

The EU member has never hosted an Olympics - since Moscow in 1980 no country from Eastern Europe has won the right - although it applied several times, the last in 1960.

One of the world’s top swimming nations, Hungary will host the World Swimming Championships in 2017, after Mexico’s Guadalajara pulled out for financial reasons.

Istvan Kovacs, an Olympic boxing champion in 1996, said in a television interview last weekend that the infrastructure costs involved in building new roads and extending the airport should be considered as “an investment”.

“At the same time as we are building the Olympics, we are also in fact building the country,” he said on the M1 channel. – AFP