Paris is an 'exemplary candidate' to hold the 2024 Games and has a strong chance of winning, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach told French President Francois Hollande. Paris is a 'very, very strong candidate,' Bach said as the two men appeared together in a news conference at IOC headquarters in Lausanne.

 

Paris took a decisive step toward a 2024 Summer Olympic bid when its City Hall backed the French aspirations to bring the Summer Olympic Games back to the capital after a 100-year hiatus. "France will be to ready to mobilize for a candidacy. The one that could be submitted by the sports movement for Paris and that it is for us a challenge. A participation challenge, I stay in the spirit of Pierre De Coubertin, but it is also a mobilization challenge around what the Olympic movement represent. It would be a great opportunity for the whole France to be present in 2024," said President Hollande.

The city council voted in favour of a bid and it is now up to the French National Olympic Committee (CNOSF) to formally declare the candidacy before the Sept. 15 deadline. The host City will be selected in 2017. Paris, which last hosted the Summer Games in 1924, lost bids to stage the 1992, 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Boston, Hamburg and Rome have already launched their bids for the 2024 Games.

"We are very happy to see that France mobilize for a Games 2024 candidacy in Paris and we are sure that it will be a very very strong candidacy which will delight many IOC members because France has a lot to offer to the Olympic movement," said Thomas Bach. The City Hall made its move after receiving a feasibility study ordered by the CNOSF earlier this year. Paris was left traumatized in 2005 when London was chosen over Paris to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

 

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