Budapest bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics

Bid history

In February 2015, the MOB recommended that the bid plan go forward and with the General Assembly of Budapest began work on detailed cooperation for the Games. Then in January 2016, city authorities approved the master-plan for the potential Olympic Games locations.

The three candidate cities are Budapest, Los Angeles, and Paris. Hamburg pulled out of the contest in November 2015 and Rome pulled out of the contest in September 2016.

Water and movement are the key elements of the Budapest 2024 logo, the result of a national contest that involved almost 200 artists, children, graphic designers, and students. This is fitting for an Olympic bid that features the River Danube as a backdrop and the connecting artery to many of the Games facilities and it is designed by Graphasel Design Studio. The interaction of the city and the river would place Budapest as a scenic and accessible Games, with a travel experience that is accessible and flexible as well as pedestrian- and cycle-friendly.

One of the world's top swimming nations with 25 swimming gold medals, Hungary will host the 2017 World Aquatics Championships. In 2017, Hungary will host other championship events such as the Judo World Championships, European Youth Olympic Festival, and European University Basketball Championships. In 2018, Szeged will host the World University Championships Canoe Sprint and Modern Pentathlon. In 2019, Budapest will host the World Table Tennis Championships, as well as the European Maccabi games and in 2020, the capital will co-host the UEFA European Football Championship.

On 27 January 2016, the General Assembly of Budapest approved a list of potential venues.

On 15 December 2016, though Budapest has been considered something of a dark horse in the competition to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, the Hungarian capital continued to move ahead with its campaign.

Budapest 2024's bid moved to the 3rd, the final stage and submitting files on 3 February for the IOC. That is when the final leg of the race began, and it lasts until September 2017.

On February 22, 2017 Budapest announced that it would withdraw its bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, leaving only Los Angeles and Paris in the race.

IOC

The goal of the IOC's Agenda 2020 reform programme is to ensure that hosting the Games is no longer the privilege of the 20 largest cities in the world. Especially given the fact that cities smaller than Budapest, such as Stockholm, Antwerp, and Helsinki, have all successfully hosted Olympics.

The Budapest bid is a response to Agenda 2020 and an attempt to bring the vision of a cost effective Olympics to fruition and ensure that the guidelines go beyond a document on paper to become a reform that is genuinely realised.

The strategic principles of the programme are:

Previous bids

Budapest's bid to host the 1916 Summer Olympics, 1920 Summer Olympics, 1936 Summer Olympics, 1944 Summer Olympics, and 1960 Summer Olympics but lost to Berlin (cancelled due to WWI), Antwerp, Berlin, London (cancelled due to World War II), and Rome respectively.

Dates

If Budapest should win the bid, the Olympics would be scheduled from 2 to 18 August 2024; while the Paralympics from 4 to 15 September 2024.

Venues

The 2024 Budapest Olympic bid seeks to take advantage of the compactness of the city and co-location of venues along the River Danube and others around the Budapest area.

The 2024 Olympics master plan comprises 31 Budapest venues hosting 26 sports and 37 disciplines. Additional Olympic cities outside of Budapest are Székesfehérvár, Balaton, Győr, Szeged, Debrecen, and Miskolc.

The 2024 Paralympics master plan comprises 21 Budapest venues hosting 22 sports and 24 disciplines. Additional Paralympics will be staged in Szeged.

The plan divides Budapest into two venue zones (Danube Zone and Heroes' Zone) that surround the city centre and include the local islands and scenery of the Danube river bank.

The two zones contain seven venue clusters, all of which are located within a ten-kilometre radius of the Olympic Village and a seven-kilometre radius of the city centre. Both the Olympic and Paralympic events would showcase Budapest's much-photographed buildings such as Heroes' Square, Buda Castle, and the Budapest Parliament.

The main stadium is located in the Danube Zone, which would host Athletics events. This is just south of the city centre as part of the Olympic Park Cluster to be built on Csepel Island along the River Danube. The Olympic Park Cluster would also contain the new tennis complex, a track for BMX racing, a handball stadium, various sports fields, and other venues for canoe-kayaking (sprint), rowing, and weightlifting. Also, the Olympic Park will host the Olympic Village up to 16,500 athletes, coaches, and others.

In addition to the Olympic Village, the Danube Zone includes Margaret Island and Óbuda Island, while the other clusters of the Budapest urban development area are in the Heroes’ Zone, Puskás Stadium, the HUNGEXPO Exhibition complex, City Park, and People’s Park.

The development of many participating venues in the city has gained popular support and is seen as timely and necessary, regardless of the Olympic Games.

The proposed venue plan comprises of:

Danube Zone

Olympic Park Cluster

Margaret Island Cluster

Óbuda Island Cluster

Heroes' Zone

City Park Cluster

Puskás Cluster

Exhibition Cluster

People's Park Cluster

Stand Alone Venues

Outside Budapest

Budget

Based on publicly-available information covering earlier estimates of potential costs of an Olympic Games in Budapest, and considering international past experiences, as well as the framework of organisation of the Games set by the Olympic Agenda 2020, the direct costs associated to a potential Budapest Olympics could be estimated at between HUF 500 billion to HUF 1,000 billion (US$1.8 billion to US$3.6 billion).

A report by KPMG, Olympics in Budapest: Dream or Reality?, has assumed that 50% of these costs would be covered by the contribution of the sector outside the partner programme. The other 50% would have to be covered by the Hungarian government.

To put the potential contribution of the state into perspective, the incremental investment linked directly to the Olympics would amount annually - and for a seven-year event preparation period - to between 0.1% and 0.2% of the Hungarian GDP for the year 2014.

According to the latest research, made by Kód Kft, almost two-thirds, 63 percent of the Hungarian population is supporting the Budapest 2024 Olympic and Paralympic bid. This means 12 percent increase in the last six months amongst the whole country’s population.

Sustainability

Budapest's bid team have expertise in legacy, development, venues, and transport, and are supported by counterparts from the bid's consultancy firms PWC and engineering group FŐMTERV.

Budapest has been eager to explore the sustainability aspect of the technical planning process. The city already has a series of six coordinated development plans in place, and the Budapest bid has been worked into and around these existing strategies, making extensive use of brownfield sites and restoration of historic buildings.

The Budapest Sustainable Development Plan is the result of three years of research and extensive collaboration between all parties with a stake in the city's future, including government departments, NGOs, and the general public.

The National Council for Sustainable Development is the entity guiding sustainability policy in Hungary. In addition to formal standards, the Budapest bid team have been actively working alongside businesses, institutions, non-profit organisations, and the community to develop the Budapest area into a smart city, encouraging investment in capital and infrastructure for sustainable economic growth and quality of life.

Aspects of this work include the Smart City Budapest (SCB) project, the Sustainable Transportation Strategy (including the Ányos Jedlik electro-mobility concept) and the Covenant of Mayors Sustainable Energy Action Plan of Budapest, part of an EU-wide strategy to lower greenhouse gas emissions from cities.

The specific projects related to the sustainability strategy that are currently being implemented include the Danube regeneration programme, wastewater management works, upgrades to the metro system, and improvements to pedestrian and cycling mobility (incorporating the MOL Bubi public bike-sharing project).

Political commitment

Budapest plan has seen opposition from the Együtt ('Together') party and two other minority parties in the General Assembly of Budapest. Some representatives on the council led calls for a public referendum on the issue but this came to an end in January 2016.

The Kúria, Hungary's supreme court, rejected a last-minute proposal that citizens should have the chance to have their say in a public vote.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government has thrown its full support behind the Budapest bid. He has said in a speech: "Hungary believes that sport is always more important than any other political interest, and that is why it must never be diverted into the arena of political battles. The Government supports the bid."

He said that over the past 120 years the Olympics have become a “ passion” of the Hungarian people, and this may have developed “because the Olympic spirit represents such a pure form of freedom that was once rare here in Central Europe.”

In January 2016, former Hungarian president Pál Schmitt was appointed President of the Budapest 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games Bid Committee.

According to the research institute Nézőpont Intézet, support among Hungarians for hosting the Olympics has risen from 40% in August 2014 to 53% by January 2016. However, according to a research made by Publicus, in August 2016 only 45% supported the bid.

Controversy and referendum petition

Most of the opposition parties and civil organisations have criticised the government for the bid, accusing it with corruption and spending money on the Olympic Games instead of developing health care, education and transportation in Budapest.

In January 2017 a civil organisation called Momentum Movement started a petition to have a referendum for Budapest residents if they want to organize the Summer Olympics in 2024 or not. Several opposition parties, such as Lehet Más a Politika (LMP), Együtt, Párbeszéd Magyarországért (PM), Magyar Szocialista Párt (MSZP) and Demokratikus Koalíció (DK) joined the movement, as well as Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt (MKKP), which also started a satiric poster campaign against the bid in February. A total of 138,527 signatures was required to be collected from Budapestians until 17 February 2017 to start a referendum that would be held in Budapest and only the residents of the capital city would be able to cast a valid vote.

266,151 signatures were submitted by Momentum on 17 February.

Sports venues

Budapest has considered the development of new venues and, where there is no legacy need, temporary solutions are proposed. All permanent venues involve currently planned projects, or venues that are needed to support community and high performance sport or other event and cultural requirements for Budapest.

For the majority of facilities, the national government is financing the cost of capital construction, based on the optimal long-term configuration. The Budapest Olympic Delivery Authority, the public body to be created to oversee the delivery of Games-related infrastructure and venue projects, will have the responsibility of ensuring that optimal legacy solutions are delivered for all new sporting and non-competition venues.

The plan is for long-term operational costs to be transferred to the venue owner. The venue owners will include public and national sport federations. The precedent for this model exists in respect of sports facilities developed previously in Budapest and Hungary, ensuring a viable and sustainable sport venue programme.

Social and economic benefits

The theme embodied in the Olympic Agenda 2020 is to allow for more flexibility in the bidding process the Olympic Games fit into their long term social and economic planning. Budapest would be a new city on the world map of the Olympics and it would bring the economic benefits to the wider East European region. The year 2039 comes exactly 50 years after celebrating freedom and the end of Communist rule in Hungary in 1989.

Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, has said: “Organising an Olympic Games would be the pinnacle of this historical process. We are not only competing for ourselves, but representing the whole region.”

From the outset, Budapest has highlighted the reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020 as one of the key reasons of the candidature. In line with Olympic Agenda 2020, sustainability, feasibility, and legacy form the cornerstones of the bid process.

Transport and infrastructure

In addition to the decision on the Olympic locations, the General Assembly of the city has in parallel approved the transport master plan, which outlines other future steps in Budapest's urban development.

These include elements in 'Budapest 2030-Long-term urban development concept and 2014-2030 Budapest Transport Development Strategy (Balázs Mór Plan). The measures include:

Closer to the Olympic Village, for the tram system, the plan is for removal of railway lines in front of the National Theater. This will allow visitors to the Millennium Center direct access to the Olympic facilities on the Danube river bank, via a spacious green area.

Budapest accommodation proposal involves a combination of hotels, serviced apartments, student accommodation, four media villages, and river cruise ships that will showcase Budapest's tourism offerings. The Budapest concept is complemented by satellite accommodation in the Lake Balaton region.

Approximately 29,000 existing and planned hotel rooms are located within a 50 kilometre radius of the Budapest city centre, of which over 80% are located within a 10 kilometre radius. Immediately outside the Budapest region, there are over 9,700 existing and planned hotel rooms located in the holiday resort towns at Lake Balaton. Siófok, at the heart of the Lake Balaton tourism area is approximately 85 minutes by rail or road connections from the centre of Budapest (without planned improvements and Games' time measures).

Hungary Olympic Team through 2032 Hungarian Olympic Committee signed for through 2032 of Hungarian broadcast TV.