Milan-Cortina, Zaia: “The Olympics have been the realization of a dream”

Milan, 23 Feb. (LaPresse) – “These Olympics are the realization of a dream. To give my region and the country a great opportunity. If I think about the next ones, all of Italy must be involved.” This is what Luca Zaia, former President of the Veneto Region, said in an interview with Repubblica. “We should build a monument to Virginia Raggi, who did not want to submit Rome’s bid for the 2024 Olympic Games. Reconstructing the facts, in 2016 a CONI dossier ‘Milan ’20-’26’ was filed. Meanwhile, Mayor Chiara Appendino submitted the bid for Turin. At that point, for me, in 2018, it was open season and I built ‘Cortina ’20-’26’, inventing the idea of a distributed Olympics and involving Cortina, Trento, Bolzano, and the Verona Arena,” he stated. “We encountered hostility from the M5S, which was in government with us in the Lega, the party from which we instead received tremendous help. There were already seven candidate States, and ours was the only bid in the history of the Games presented by two regions, my Veneto and Attilio Fontana’s Lombardy,” he emphasized, noting that the regions “took on the main risk, which is the guarantees amounting to 90 million euros.”