The IOC "pledged on Friday to make changes to the bidding process following the withdrawal of Budapest from the race to host the 2024 Games, leaving just two candidates," according to Karolos Grohmann of REUTERS. The Hungarian capital "pulled the plug on its project" following a collection of more than 200,000 signatures against the bid, with Paris and L.A. the "only cities left in contention for the IOC vote in September." IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said, "It is disappointing that this (Budapest) decision had to be taken -- the candidature committee had presented an excellent project, which has built on the reforms contained in Olympic Agenda 2020." Agenda 2020 is a set of 40 reforms "voted in back in" '14 to make the Games "more appealing to potential host cities." Critics have said that Agenda 2020 "so far failed to deliver given that eight cities have pulled out" of the '22 and '24 campaigns. The IOC said that "if it were not for the changes of Agenda 2020 no city would now be bidding for the Games" (REUTERS, 2/24).
