2020 Olympic bid for Romagna?

The talk elsewhere in the last week has been about the awarding of the 2016 Olympic Games to Rio de Janeiro, and the embarassing failure of the Obama backed Chicago campaign. Elsewhere, because here in Romagna Olympics fans are thinking further down the track – four years further, to be exact, and the competition to win the 2020 games.

Amazing as it may seem, to readers used to the name-dropping of the world’s biggest cities (London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and now Rio de Janeiro), Romagna has launched a committee to promote the region as host of the 2020 games!

A year ago a campaign and committee was formed for ‘Romagna 2020’, which is , perhaps against the odds, hoping to push this small but formidable Italian region into the sporting limelight – against big names like Rome and Venice who have also signalled their intention to bid for the games.

Amongst the declared competition for the hosting of the games are cities like Delhi, Rabat, St. Petersburg, Lisbon, Warsaw, Tokyo, St. Petersburg, and Doha to name just a few.

In Romagna’s favour is its undoubted infrastructure and capacity to accomodate large numbers of visitors. Anyone who’s been to Rimini at the height of the tourist season will attest to that. Whether, though, the region has the clout, and image required to make it through to the final round remains to be seen.

Also, it would make Olympic history, given that it’s a region (or, to be precise, part of a region – Emilia-Romagna) as opposed to a single city. There are those who’ve suggested that it’s all really just a sophisticated marketing ploy, but as with any Olympics bid there has to be a certain strange level of madness and pragmatism at work.

If the bid succeeds there’ll be a queue of people declaring that Romagna is an obvious choice because of its experience in hosting large events. If it fails, an equally long queue – no doubt made up, in part, of the same people as the first – will declare that it was always a folly.

We think it’s a great idea – good luck to the Romagna 2020 bid!

A host for the Summer Olympics of 2020 is expected to be chosen by 2013.