Rogge has high hopes for Youth Games 13/08/2010 |
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International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge is confident the Youth Olympic Games (YOG), which get underway in Singapore this weekend, will become an “indispensable fixture” on the sporting calendar.
Costs for the inaugural YOG have skyrocketed, while ticket sales have been sluggish despite a massive publicity campaign.
But Rogge wrote ahead of the event: "Very soon, the Youth Olympic Games will become as much an indispensable fixture of the Olympic calendar as its grown-up brothers.”
In 2007, the IOC initially projected the Youth Games would cost $30m to stage but when Singapore won its bid in 2008 the budget rose to $76m. The Government reportedly said last month it expects a final bill of $287m.
Meanwhile, in an online poll last month on Channel NewsAsia's website, 88 per cent of 6,400 respondents said they were not at all interested in the Games.
However, Rogge told the Associated Press this week: "I believe I can say we are experts in staging major sports events. But we are entering a new field, the education field. We might make some errors in the beginning but we will learn from them.”
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