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Hungarian Olympic Committee focuses 120th anniversary on Olympic bid

Xinhua, December 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Hungarian Olympic Committee (HOC) marked its 120th anniversary with a ceremonious session in Budapest on Tuesday focused on its bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

Hungary, winner of 486 medals in its Olympic history, more than any other country ever to host the Games, applied under the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Agenda 2020 reform program, which was designed to make it easier and less expensive for smaller countries to host Olympic Games.

The anniversary session of the HOC, which was founded one year before the first Modern Olympic Games held in Athens in 1896, was attended by IOC President Thomas Bach, himself an Olympic gold medalist. Bach called the HOC's 120th anniversary a milestone for the entire Olympic movement and presented HOC President Zsolt Borkai, also an Olympic gold medalist, with the Pierre de Coubertin medal.

Bach reiterated that the Agenda 2020 reform would make it possible for a country like Hungary and a city like Budapest to host the Olympics.

Hungary appears to be a strong contender, he told the gathering, given its existing facilities and the attractiveness of Budapest. It definitely has a place among the candidates, he said but with Los Angeles, Rome, and Paris competing against it, the contest looks to be tough and lengthy, Bach said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a sports enthusiast who attended the anniversary session, said that Budapest was ready to take advantage of the Agenda 2020 offered by the IOC. He pointed out that were Hungary to win the bid, it would be the first central European country ever to host a Summer Olympic Games.

Sports, he said, were always more important than political interests and must not become a political battle ground. When presented with the idea of bidding for the Games, he said, 80 percent of the Parliament, 90 percent of the Budapest Assembly, and 100 percent of the HOC voted in favor.

Hungarians have been passionate about the Olympics in the past 120 years, he said, calling the Olympic ideal "a pure form of freedom that has been a rare treasure here in Central Europe."

HOC President Borkai said that Hungary was in eighth place overall among Olympic medalist countries and that no one understood why it had never hosted an Olympic event. Agenda 2020 promises to give Hungary and Budapest a historic opportunity, he added.

The IOC will name the host of the 2024 Games in Lima in 2017. Endi