Chances shrinking for Budapest’s 2024 Olympic Games bid

Budapest, Feb 19: The chances of Hungary to host the 2024 Olympic games have seriously diminished due to a domestic anti-Olympic petition, according to Budapest’s bidding committee for the 2024 Games.

On Friday, opponents of the bid presented officials over 266,151 sigtures seeking a referendum, almost double of the 138,000 needed, Xinhua news agency reported.

“Over the last couple of weeks, a common tiol goal has become a dispute between political parties. The common political will to support the Hungarian Olympic games does not exist anymore, and without unbroken political and community unity, Budapest has no chance of competing against Paris and Los Angeles, who are among the biggest and richest cities of the world,” the Budapest 2024 bid committee said in statement on Saturday.

The committee also said that they would suspend all further work and payments relevant to the 2024 Olympic games until the leadership of the city of Budapest and the Hungarian government comes to an agreement on how to proceed in the lights of the recent events.

On Friday, the Mayor of Budapest, Istvan Tarlos, told jourlists that he was considering to withdraw officially from the bid, as early as the middle of next week. IANS