http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/sports/olympics/rome-summer-games-2024-bid.html 2016-09-21 18:27:34 Rome’s Mayor Won’t Support 2024 Olympic Bid The mayor, Virginia Raggi, dismissed a bid as financially unsustainable. The Games “will bring only debt,” she said. === Rome was effectively knocked out of the race to host the 2024 Summer Olympics on Wednesday when its mayor, Virginia Raggi, decided to oppose a bid by the city. Raggi, a political newcomer facing more serious issues in her first term as Rome’s mayor, expressed concern that the Games would be too costly for her city. At a news conference in Rome, Raggi said: Raggi, the leader Rome’s bid had been built around the city’s historic monuments, which were the backdrop for the 1960 Games there. Events and activities were to be held at or near the Forum, the Circus Maximus, the Arch of Constantine, the Colosseum and the Vatican. Rome’s apparent disinterest in hosting the Games leaves three candidates for the 2024 Games: Los Angeles, the host in 1984 and 1932; Paris, which has hosted the Summer Olympics twice but not since 1924; and Budapest. Another candidate, Hamburg, withdrew in 2015 after a public referendum narrowly rejected a bid, 52 percent to 48 percent. The 2024 host city is scheduled to be announced at the International Olympic Committee congress in September 2017 in Lima, Peru. Oddsmakers have installed Paris and Los Angeles as the favorites. Enthusiasm for hosting the Games has waned in recent years as it has become increasingly clear that they are almost always Bidding is even more of a problem for the Winter Olympics. In recent years, a handful of cities has raised — and then dropped — the idea of bidding, mostly for financial reasons. Only two cities stepped forward to bid for the 2022 Games: