Madrid´s Minute Long Olympic Dream Ends…..Or Does It?

September 23, 2021September 23, 2021 Madrid Metropolitan olympics, Sport

Madrid´s supposed 5th attempt to host an Olympic Games appears to have failed before it began with confusion and contradictory statements.

No sooner had Madrid´s Vice Mayor, Begoña Villacís, said that “Madrid wants to be the Olympic venue” and that the city´s candidacy campaign was underway did Madrid´s Mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, deny that the Spanish capital had joined the 2036 Olympic bid race.

Immediately after that, however, Almeida met with the President of the Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blanco, seemingly without Villacis’ knowledge, to announce that indeed there will be a partnership towards a possible future bid but that “the city has not made the decision to formally present the candidacy for the Olympic Games in 2036.”

“We have to be very cautious. There have been three candidatures (2012, 2016 and 2020) in which we have not obtained the seat and it is essential that we have a minimum guarantee of success and that only part of the unity of the institutions and the complicity with the people of Madrid.“

Madrid also bid for the 1972 Olympic Games.

Madrid lost the battle for the 2012 Olympics to London and insisted on a controversial repeat bid in 2016 which was doomed in most eyes under the “rotating continents” formula.

Back again for 2020 and Ana Botella’s ‘relaxing cup of café con leche in the Plaza Mayor’ didnt move the judges to award the games to the city, which went instead to Tokyo.

The subsequent postponement and pandemic disruption that hit Tokyo caused a rueful Almeida to say that “considering what was seen, thank goodness they didn’t give them to us.”

Paris will host the Olympics in 2024, Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032.

A 2030 Winter Games bid from the Pyrenees and Barcelona is currently underway.

There are several cities already discussing 2036 bids including projects from Germany ( including joint Germany-Israel), India, Indonesia, Hungary, Qatar, Russia and North and South Korea.