Madrid apologises for remarks about rival Rio

October 1st, 2009

The Madrid bid team for the 2016 Olympics has apologised for disrespectful remarks against rivals Rio de Janeiro.

‘We want to apologise to Rio,’ Madrid bid CEO Mercedes Coghen said at a presentation of the bid in a Copenhagen hotel here Wednesday.

‘We try to have fair play. All four cities are very good cities who can win. But we hope it will be Madrid.’

Madrid, Rio, Chicago and Tokyo are the candidates when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) elects the host city Friday.

The race is heating up in the final countdown and Spanish Olympic Committee vice-president Jose Maria Odriozola was Wednesday quoted by Spain’s EFE news agency as saying that Rio’s bid was the worst of the four.

Rio organisers announced a formal complaint over the statements from Odriozola, but a spokeswoman for the IOC, Emmanuelle Moreau, told DPA that the IOC had received nothing of that kind by Wednesday night.

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