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Mayor suggests Colosseum for 2024 Olympics awards ceremony if Rome wins bid

Xinhua, May 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Rome mayor Ignazio Marino on Friday suggested Colosseum might host the award ceremonies in case the Italian capital manages to win the bid for the 2024 Olympic games.

"I have a dream: if we manage to have the Olympics here, I would like to see the award ceremonies to take place at the Colosseum," Marino said at a meeting with International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach.

"We want to renovate the Colosseum arena, and the athletes could be lifted in like the gladiators in ancient Rome," Marino added.

Bach replied Marino's idea was "wonderful", although he jokingly added "as long as lions don't arrive then".

The IOC president considered Rome's candidacy as "very well placed".

"Italy's candidacy is strong because of its rich history, that of the country and its sporting one," Bach said.

"With your great attachment to Olympic ideals, your athletes and your love of sport you will have a strong bid".

Bach paid an official visit in Rome to receive the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI)'s highest award for contribution to sport.

After the meeting with CONI President Giovanni Malago, IOC Italian members, and the Rome mayor, he met with Italian president Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinale presidential palace.

"The great consensus in supporting Rome's bid, from president Mattarella, the CONI and mayor Marino, is very important and will give strength to the Italian project," Bach said.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi officially announced Rome would bid for the 2024 Olympics in December 2014.

The previous government in 2012 had scrapped the candidacy for the 2020 Games due to financial worries.

So far, Hamburg in Germany, Boston in the United States, and the French capital Paris have officially declared their candidacies along with the Italian capital.

Rome hosted the Olympics last time in 1960.

The applicant city phase for the 2024 Olympics will last from September 2015 to April-May 2016, the IOC said.

The IOC will then select the winner city in summer 2017. Endit