Budapest applauded by international sport leaders

The short travelling times, the harmony between the city and the Olympics developments and the beauty of Budapest were praised by the representatives of 22 sport unions, who visited the Hungarian city competing for the organisation of the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, in the past four months. Since then, based on ongoing agreements, the planned locations of many events, such as the modern pentathlon, rowing or mountain bike, have changed. The latter changed from Hármashatárhegy to Testvérhegy, reports Origo.

According to the announcement of Budapest 2024 mainly the presidents, secretary-generals, sport and event managers of the sport unions travelled to Budapest, where each of them spent an average of two days.

The hosts showed the overall conception of the Budapest Olympics, the so-called master plan, the visitors could take a look at the location of the Olympic Village and travel to the competition locations, which are already existing in the capital city and outside Budapest, or are included in the application. Besides, the delegate of the Hungarian sport union made a presentation on the situation of sports here, and the guests could also visit the Visitor Centre on a pram stationing on the Danube.

According to the announcement, the unions of all the 28 Olympic sports were invited to Budapest, and there were even organisations that did not travel to any of the competing cities, neither to Paris nor Los Angeles. For example FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) should have visited many stadiums, but they did not accept the invitations because of the lack of time.

The representatives of FINA (International Swimming Federation) have already visited Budapest many times – regardless of the Olympic tender – because of the world championship next summer, while ICF (International Canoe Federation) has indicated many times that they found the track in Szeged to be one of the bests in the world, and organised several competitions there, so they did not find it necessary to visit again.