Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, a member of the International Olympic Committee, is in South Africa to vote on where future games are to be held. In an interview in de Volkskrant newspaper, he talks about the Netherlands’ hopes to host the Olympic Games in 2028.

The prince thinks that the current preparations by the Dutch Olympic Fire lobby group for a 2028 bid are building the groundwork for a possible bid: “Everyone has to think about the importance of the Olympic Games for their sector of society,” he says, “from sportsmen and women, businesses, right up to the parliamentary urban planning commission.”

Support
Prince Willem-Alexander stresses the importance of public backing for an Olympic bid. In South Korea, where the 2018 Winter Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang, the National Olympic Committee had support from 90 percent of the population. But it still took three goes before the bid was successful.

That's not likely to happen in the Netherlands: you need to win the bid in one go. “In western countries, you're doing well if you have more than half the people behind you,” explains the prince.

Incidentally, Prince Willem-Alexander admitted (off the record) that he voted for what he described as the best bid for the 2018 Winter Games: Munich.

(nc/mw)

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