Pressure on Raggi to support Rome's 2024 Bid

ROME -- As Italy celebrated winning a third gold medal at the Rio Olympics, Mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi told the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) that no decision will be taken before September on whether to confirm Rome's candidature to play host to the 2024 Olympics.
Another victory has been won for Italy in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, with 28 year old Campriani winning the men's ten metre air rifle competition, making it his third personal Olympic medal but also Italy's third gold medal this summer.
Despite this recent success for Italy, Giovanni Malagò, President of CONI, is trying to persuade Raggi to change her mind on the topic of Rome hosting the 2024 Olympics, urging her to say yes. According to Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, he has been attempting to convince Raggi to give her approval for a period of about two months now, and is not giving up on trying to persuade her.
The deadline for sending off the second part of the Olympic files to the International Olympic Committee (CIO) is on October 2, which is partly why Malagò is pushing for a positive decision from Raggi.
Raggi, however, according to Il Fatto Quotidiano, does not consider the Olympic Games a “priority,” and without her stamp of approval it will be impossible for Rome to host the next games.
In his aim to persuade Raggi to approve Rome’s bid to host the 2024 games, Malagò has given her the opportunity to review Italy’s Olympic file, moving the proposed Olympic village from the Tor Vergata area, which the group Caltagirone is strongly interested in. However, until now, no back-up plan has been suggested as an alternative option.
A hypothesis has also been leaked that in an attempt to secure Raggi’s approval, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the current president of Italy’s Bid Committee for the 2024 Olympic Games, might be replaced with somebody who is more “satisfactory” in the eyes of the Five Star Movement (M5S).
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said “Our Olympic file is the best, and although there are many questions which we are of course aware of, there is the Olympic Truce.”
Raggi is undoubtedly hesitating about the matter, and has not come out with either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. As Il Fatto Quotidiano outlines, she has not sent any representative from the council to the 2016 games in Brasil, but she has also not managed to give a definite ‘no’. She says that she will give her final decision “by mid-September” and has made clear that she will not be rushed on the matter.
What is certain, however, is that on August 29, Raggi will greet the Italian Paralympic athletes who are going out to Rio, and on this occasion, as Il Fatto Quotidiano states, there might be a “surprise guest” present at the event who could “give important information about the Roman candidature.”
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