20 May,2010 11:50 AM IST | | Agencies
Italian capital wins decision over Venice as committee counts onu00a0the city'su00a0past experience of hosting the Games
Rome has beat Venice to became Italy's official candidate for the 2020 summer Olympic Games.
The decision was taken by the Italian Olympic Committee, following a voting procedure that granted the candidature to the national capital, after Rome got 68 out of 70 votes.
"Rome has a greater logistic, infrastructural and organisational backbone than Venice," the committee said in a statement.
Venice's Olympic project had to start from scrap, while Rome had the advantage of having pre-existing structures built when the city hosted the 1960 Olympics. This experience guaranteed that Rome will respect building deadlines, it said.
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Venice was also penalised by the fact that several sport venues would have to be built on the islands facing the city, thus reachable solely by boat.
"To organise the Olympics and upgrade the existing sport infrastructure, we only need 1.5 billion euro of public funds. The rest will be financed by private sponsors and firms," Gianni Alemanno, mayor of Rome, was quoted as saying.
Other cities that are bidding for the 2020 games are Tokyo, Istanbul, Lima and Durban. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will announce the winner in Buenos Aires in 2013.
