The Sports Administration yesterday denied that it has any intention of bidding for the 2024 Olympic Games, adding that it is helping New Taipei City bid for the 2023 Asian Games.
The US Olympic Committee has been meeting in Boston to discuss possible cities to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. A report from WCVB-TV, an ABC-affiliated television station in Boston, said on Tuesday that Boston is likely to submit a bid for the 2024 Olympics along with Dallas, Los Angeles, Rome and Taipei.
In response, Sports Administration Director-General Ho Jow-fei (何卓飛) said that the administration is assisting New Taipei City with its bid for the 2023 Asian Games and the nation has no plans to bid for the 2024 Olympics because the Games are only a year apart.
Taipei City Department of Sports Commissioner Ho Chin-liang (何金梁) said that the capital’s top priority is to make sure the 2017 Summer Universiade is successful.
“We don’t have any plans nor have we received instructions from the central government [about the 2024 Olympics Games],” Ho Chin-liang said.
The Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee also denied having received such information, adding that a bid for such a large sports event would require inter-departmental coordination and that there would need to be a committee.
Though WCVB-TV failed to mention the source of its information, a bid for the 2024 Olympics was mentioned by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during a TV debate on Dec. 17, 2011, ahead of the presidential election.
“The nation has just secured the right to host the Summer Universiade, which is second only to the Olympics. We can now start training teenagers so that they have a chance to fight for gold medals in 2017,” Ma said in the debate. “With the experience of the Summer Universiade as the basis, our next goal would be [to host] the 2024 Olympic Games. Five countries who have held the Summer Universiade in the past have also held the Olympics, including the US and China.”
However, the idea of hosting the Olympics was dismissed by his opponent, People First Party presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜).
“Taiwan has hosted many sports events before and you can’t say that they were not important, but a good manager must prioritize the allocation of resources and pay more attention to the nation’s economy,” Soong said.
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