BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary had to withdraw its bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games to avoid a humiliating defeat in the race with Paris and Los Angeles after a local political movement "killed the Olympic dream", Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday. Momentum argued that Hungary was not yet rich enough to host the Olympics. Therefore, the bid had to be withdrawn in order to avoid inevitable "shame" on Hungary, he argued. "There is a political organisation, which did not even hide that they want to primarily form a party and enter the political arena....and were not even really interested in the Olympics and they went as far as killing the Olympic dream," Orban told state radio in his regular interview. "It is Viktor Orban who killed a dream," Papp said.

Source: The Star February 24, 2017 09:11 UTC