Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) President Alejandro Blanco "ruled out the possibility of Madrid soon returning to bid for the Olympics after the last three failures," according to LIBERTAD DIGITAL. He said, "We believe that the last stage was very nice but also very hard. We had a huge bid, we were the No. 1 and we had the best displays. I do not say this, the president of the IOC says this. And we lost. The only satisfaction we have is that, this was in September '13, in December '14 with the new changes that the IOC produced, the bid model for a city that hosts the Games is the model that we presented. We always said that the Games have to adapt to the city and not the city to the Games. But I also believe that after losing three straight times, Madrid cannot bid." Blanco admitted that "it is true that we are experiencing significant declines in some sports." He said, "I believe that there is a lot of sports culture, the problem is that in Spain, first it is football, later it is football and after it is football. This is above all the others. I believe that we are one of the most multi-sport countries and I believe that the society will continue to understand this more. Little by little the culture is changing and our athletes are achieving recognition" (LIBERTAD DIGITAL, 5/19).
