GamesBids.com presents the fourth annual Top Ten list of Olympic Bid Stories for 2011. These stories impacted the course of Olympic bids, or the Olympic bid process, and formed interesting plotlines for the year. We’ll run them down from 10th to 1st during the holiday season.
Top Olympic Bid Stories of 2011: #7 South Africa opts out of symbolic 2020 Olympic Games bid
After Rio de Janeiro won its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, the stars seemed to align for a possible Games in South Africa for 2020. Rio became the first South America city to be awarded the Olympic Games – they will be staged only two years after the same nation hosts the FIFA World Cup.
But the Games have never been held in Africa and South Africa had already successfully hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup. IOC President Jacques Rogge has made it his mandate to have the Games visit each continent and he firmly supported a Games in Africa for the first time in 2020. Cities in South Africa lined up – including Durban, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth – but the national Olympic Committee wasn’t convinced the timing was right.
The IOC session was scheduled to be held in Durban in July and in the weeks prior it seemed the bid was on and then off again as each day passed.
And even as the “final” decision was made not to bid, nobody really ruled out a bid until the final IOC deadline in September.
Durban may bid for the 2024 Games – but had the city bid for 2020 it would have been among the favourites to win.
Watch for top 10 story #6 coming soon on GamesBids.com.
