"It is a pity that Budapest dropped out of the race for the 2024 Summer Olympics," leading sportswriter Alan Abrahamson says on 3 wire sports.
Abrahamson adds that if these first few days of the 2017 FINA world championships are any indication, and they are, Budapest would make a great stage for a Summer Olympics.
“First of all, well done, Hungary,” the Australian national swim team coach Jacco Verhaeren said at an opening news conference.
US swimmer Matt Grevers said, and these remarks spoke for a great many people, “Hungary has blown me away.”
“The city is lovely, there are a lot of beautiful old buildings,” Aussie swimmer Bronte Campbell said.
“We were over the Danube River, on the bridges. When we will finish, we will have three more extra days and I will look around. I want to go to the baths," she added, "just go check out the vibe of the city."
“The pool is wonderful. It surely is,” said Hungarian-born Italian diver Noemi Batki. “Probably the most amazing one I have ever seen.”
“Competing in Budapest was awesome, I felt like competing on home soil, really. On top of that, apparently the audience knew that the Italian team has a Hungarian member and they cheered on me accordingly. Feeling loved by the audience is great, especially because I left the country at a very early age and have been living in Italy ever since, yet Hungarians fans treated me like a local athlete. I have Hungarian blood running through my veins so seeing the home crowd cheering on me was amazing," she added.
Hungarian swimmer László Cseh said “being roared on by the home crowd is amazing.”
“This is one of the best pools I’ve ever swum in, amazing place, one we will never forget,” said American Kanako Spendlove. “We are really grateful to the organizers and the volunteers for their job," she added.
Abrahamson says these sorts of high notes have been sounding since the opening ceremony — a spectacular two-hour interplay over the river of light, sound, water, music and, at the end, a fireworks bonanza.
The sportswriter has covered the Olympic scene for 20 years, and he says the opening along the Danube River is the best he has witnessed in all that time but for the Summer Games in Beijing in 2008.
Hungary has always been about in world sports — an important country in its own right surprising the world when the rest of us really shouldn’t be surprised because the people of Hungary seemingly always over-produce, he adds.
When you look at Olympic history, at the medals chart, Hungary is on the top-10 list — the one nation with the strongest history in the movement that has never played host to the Games!
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