Italian Olympic Committee President Officially Withdraws Rome 2024 Bid

Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) President Giovanni Malago said that CONI has "officially withdrawn its bid to stage the 2024 Games in Rome after the city council voted to oppose the project," according to Massimiliano Di Giorgio of REUTERS. Malago said, "Today I wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee in which we have broken off our candidature for the Olympic Games in 2024." Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi announced last month that she "would not back Malago's drive to put on the sporting extravaganza, saying that staging the Games would bury the Italian capital under piles of debt and tonnes of cement." Italy PM Matteo Renzi's government had supported the bid and the broader Rome municipality, which includes an array of small town councils, had indicated "it was ready to put its name to the project in an attempt to bypass the 5-Star veto" (REUTERS, 10/11).