Buenos Aires: Argentina will consider a possible Olympic Games bid after completing the Youth Olympics starting in Buenos Aires this week, Argentina president Mauricio Macri said on Friday.
Macri, speaking at the start of an Olympic forum in the Argentine capital, said the Buenos Aires Youth Games had introduced innovations that could be implemented in other events.
The Youth Olympics are an International Olympic Committee (IOC) event and are a scaled down version of the Games, organised every four years for young athletes.
“Obviously once this wonderful event is finished we will have the chance to start thinking about trying to organise Olympic Games,” Macri said.
“It is obviously much more difficult.” Seated next to IOC President Thomas Bach, Macri said the country’s current economic situation had forced organisers to find cost-effective solutions for the Youth Games.
“At a time when we are committed to reduce poverty, organising such an event of money is no longer so easy. These innovations will help to add another value,” Macri said.
Argentina is struggling to break free from cyclical financial crises that have hit the country every decade over the past 60 years.
A $57 billion (Dh209.2 billion) International Monetary Fund standby financing deal reached last week, upgraded from an original $50 billion, includes sharper spending cuts and tax hikes aimed at wiping out the country’s primary fiscal deficit, which is expected to equal 2.6 per cent of gross domestic product this year.
“In this moment in which we live with a lot of tensions and the need to build new bridges, sports has a unique power to build bridges more solidly than those of steel,” Macri said.
Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro hosted the first South American Olympic Games in 2016. The 2024 Olympics will be hosted by Paris while Los Angeles will stage the 2028 edition.
