The Coordination Commission Taranto 2026 chaired by Stavri Bello together with the ICMG President Davide Tizzano and the Secretary General Iakovos Filippousis visited the Italian city to evaluate the progress of the works for the Mediterranean Games “Taranto 2026”.
Besides President Ferrarese in the meetings on behalf of the Organizing Committee were also present, the Vice President Michele Pelillo, the General Director Carlo Molfetta and the mayor of Taranto Rinaldo Melucci.
ICMG delegation strongly recommended to the OCMG to finalize the Games Masterplan, the daily Sports Program and the organizational chart by recruiting senior managers until April 10th, 2024.
The President of the International Committee of Mediterranean Games Mr. Davide Tizzano and the President of the Organizing Committee “Taranto 2026” Mr. Massimo Ferrarese held a press conference after the meetings of the Coordination Commission Taranto 2026 with members of the Organizing Committee.
President Tizzano said: “The main goal is to leave a legacy in Taranto of cutting-edge systems that can be used in the future to organize events of national and international importance and build on this legacy to develop sports in the area”.
He also underlined that the main advantage of the Games “is the decision of the government to allocate 275 million euros for the organization of the Games which will be invested for Taranto.” Volunteers will also be important: “I am sure that it will be easy to encourage young people to be a part of this great sporting event” added Tizzano.
The hospitality of the athletes and participants in the Mediterranean Games was one of the key topics stated Massimo Ferrarese: “It is a necessity to ensure that the athletes will travel to the training and competition venues in a distance less than 30 kilometres”.
The President of the Organizing Committee also said: “Our priority is to not waste any more time because too much time has already been lost. It would be a huge mistake, because the train of the Mediterranean Games passes only once.”
Mr. Ferrarese emphasized the need to overcome the conflicts that ended up slowing down the progress of the works: “We need to speed up and it won’t be easy because we need everyone’s collaboration. In recent days we have recorded great collaboration from the International Committee of the Mediterranean Games, the General Director and the Vice President of the Organizing Committee.”
“I don’t hide the fact that I took advantage of these days to present the first master plan and further develop it to obtain some more resources for Taranto. We know very well that the intervention for the Iacovone stadium is no longer worth 28 million but exceeds 45 million euros just as the PalaRicciardi exceeds 15 million” added Massimo Ferrarese.
Taranto 2026 OCMG will report to the ICMG ExCo on April 20th, 2024, in Rabat, Morocco, on the progress of all all the items agreed during the CoCom visit this weekend to Taranto.
