Hungary’s history of Olympic success serves as the basis for its bid to host the 2024 Games, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said while visiting the closing weekend of Rio 2016.
After witnessing the women’s 500 meters kayak four win, the country’s eighth gold medal at the Games, Hungary has once again beaten countries bigger and more prosperous than itself, Orbán said.
“The total Hungarian population makes up 0.2 percent of the world population. And yet we beat the world eight times.”
He noted that more countries won medals this year than at the London Games, while the number of events were the same. Therefore, Hungary’s athletes had to seriously raise their game just to ensure that the country keeps its position, he said.
Hungary is the only country out of the most successful ones never to have hosted the Olympics, he noted.
During his visit to Rio de Janeiro, Orban met International Olympic Committee head Thomas Bach for talks, which covered Hungary’s bid to host the 2024 Games.
Orban congratulated Bach on organizing a successful Olympics in Rio and said Hungary is committed to its bid to host the event in 2024.
He said the IOC’s Agenda 2020 program, a cost-cutting policy meant to make it cheaper to host the Games, was “tailor-made” for Hungary because it also gives medium-size cities a chance to bid for the Olympics.
Orbán told Bach that over the next few years, Hungary will carry out the infrastructure developments that would be needed to host the Games regardless of whether or not it is selected to stage the event. The question is no longer “Why should Hungary host the Olympics?”, but rather “Why shouldn’t it?” Orbán said.
Orbán also met senior FINA officials in Rio on Friday for talks on Hungary’s preparations for hosting the 2017 World Aquatics Championships as well as the country’s bid to host the 2024 Olympic Summer Games.