Eight days after Rome mayor Virginia Raggi issued a motion to end the city’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics, the city council approved that change in course.
The council, controlled by Raggi’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, voted 30-12 to scrap the bid, just one year after the same body voted 38-6 to approve the bid under Raggi’s predecessor, Ignazio Marino.
Any bid to host an Olympic Games requires the support of a city’s government, but bid leaders and the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) still have hopes that a regime change could put the plan back on track.
The IOC told the Associated Press that it was in contact with CONI and the bid committee to “make sense of these political circumstances,” and more figures to be discussed when IOC President Thomas Bach meets with CONI and bid officials next week in Rome.
If the Rome bid is not revived (which seems highly unlikely at this point), Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris would be the only remaining contenders to host the 2024 Games. The host city is scheduled to be picked next summer.
Click here to read the full report from the Associated Press (via ESPN). Check out Swimming World’s original report on Raggi’s motion to cancel the bid here.