President meets Universiade officials to pitch Taipei's bid
2011/10/18 13:44:35
Taipei, Oct. 18 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou met Tuesday with three officials from the International University Sports Federation (FISU) to show support for Taipei's bid to host the 2017 Summer Universiade.
"Objectively speaking, we have a lot of the infrastructure needed already in place. From a more subjective perspective, we have an extremely strong will to host this important event," Ma told FISU assessors Hisato Igarashi and Marian Dymalski and Summer Universiade director Marc Vandenplas.
Taipei is vying with the Brazilian capital of Brasilia to host the world university games, the world's premier sports competition for student-athletes. The FISU will decide the host city in late November.
Ma described Taipei as a city that very much values sports, citing the popularity of sports centers found in each of the city's 12 districts that were launched when Ma was Taipei mayor and completed under his successor, incumbent mayor Hau Lung-bin.
"The average number of visits at each sports center is as high as 1 million a month. I believe this is a tremendous record," the president said.
Ma added that if Taipei were to win the right to host the event, it would yield excellent results because of his and Mayor Hau's strong backing of sports activities.
The president is known as a long-time jogger and actively promotes jogging, swimming and now biking, which has become a major pastime in Taiwan.
"We want to build 1,500 kilometers of biking trails around the island. We organize a Tour de Taiwan, just like the Tour de France, to promote cycling," the president said.
Ma acknowledged that because of the global political situation and conflict across the Taiwan Strait in the past, "the Republic of China (Taiwan) faced many obstacles when participating in world sports events. However, the situation has gotten better with improved cross-strait rapport.
"Because we have not had many opportunities to host international events, we will cherish every opportunity and will push for perfection. As the president of the ROC, I promise we will definitely achieve this."
The FISU officials are scheduled to conclude their four-day visit on Tuesday and will then prepare a report on their findings for the executive committee, which will have the final say on which city hosts the 2017 Summer Universiade.
No Taiwanese city has ever hosted a Universiade, and Taiwan has lost out twice in recent bids. Kaohsiung failed to get the nod for the 2011 Universiade, won by Shenzhen, China, and Taipei was beaten out by Gwangju, South Korea for the right to host the 2015 games. (By Kendra
Source :Focus Taiwan
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