Cities tangle over Italy’s 2020 Olympics bid

by Antonino John Scoppettuolo (staff) | Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Last month saw Rio de Janeiro fend off competition from Tokio, Madrid and Chicago in bids to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Seconds after the IOC’s announcement, countries vying for the 2020 Olympics put forward their candidacies. With a little help from Rome and Venice, however, the method of the Italian candidacy was the source of no small embarrassment for Italy’s Olympic committee CONI, as mayors Gianni Alemanno (Rome) and Massimo Cacciari (Venice) jumped the gun claiming sterling credentials – at each other’s expense – towards hosting the games.

The scene was set for recrimination, with Cacciari pointing to Rome’s failure at securing the 2004 Olympics (hosted in Athens) and submitting “it is time for a change”, and Alemanno asserting Rome’s unparalleled “infrastructure credentials”. Venice, Rome’s mayor argued “doesn’t even have an international airport”. In a subsequent patch-up, talk even went the way of a joint Rome-Venice candidacy, an option flatly but discreetly dismissed by CONI on security considerations (an also owing to the fact that a Venice candidacy already envisages spreading the host burden on the mainland cities of Padua and Treviso).

In a further turn of events and given the tone set by the two major rivals, halfway through October the cities of Palermo (Sicily) and Bari (Apulia) submitted – with no prior IOC consultation – their independent candidacies. That – and Palermo’s promoting its move with the 5-ring Olympic logo – forced CONI president Giovanni Petrucci into action, submitting “it is time we stop dishing out candidacies like they are pizzas”. Petrucci later underscored that “Italy’s credibility” should not be undermined by “off-the-cuff candidacies.”