Rome 2024 bid chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo has revealed bid details in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press (AP).
Plans include cyclists finishing the road race with a sprint on the majestic Via dei Fori Imperiali and sailing events taking places off Sardinia, Sicily or the Amalfi coast. The marathon route would run alongside Rome’s synagogue and mosque to promote interfaith peace.
Montezemolo said, “with television today, to have the possibility to put together the sport, the emotion, with the (surroundings) is fantastic”.
The centre of Rome’s bid is the Foro Italico which features the Stadio Olimpico used for the 1960 Games with an adjacent aquatics venue.
Montezemolo said, “we can do the opening ceremony and the athletics tonight, (we’re) ready. Swimming tonight… Seventy per cent of the venues are existing”.
Another main area will be at Tor Vergata, a university zone on Rome’s ring road that would be used for the athletes village, basketball, volleyball and perhaps the veledrome.
Gymnastics, boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo and some other sports would be held at the Fiera convention centre near the main airport.
Montezemolo wants the athletes village to be turned into university housing and a hospital after the Games.
Rome wants to host the Games in August (sometime between August 5-25) when the locals go on vacation – so traffic might not be as much of a problem.
Rome says it is also promoting a thrifty bid. Plans call for a Games budget of six billion euros ($6.7 billion) or roughly half of what London spent in 2012. The bid budget is 10 million euros ($11 million) – a fraction of the 60 million euros ($65 Million) that rival Paris is spending.
The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Agenda 2020 has spearheaded changes that will help reduce overall bidding costs.
Italy’s Prime Minister axed Rome’s 2020 bid mid-campaign after he refused to underwrite a national guarantee of the project amid an economic crisis. The nation is still recovering financially and the city is struggling with a corruption scandal that involved the resignation of city officials.
The bid is reportedly working on the launch of its Website.
Other cities bidding for the 2024 Summer Games include Hamburg, Paris, Budapest, and Los Angeles. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will select the host city 2017 in Lima, Peru.
