A broken promise: Bucharest loses 2017 European Gymnastics Championships to Cluj-Napoca

The European Gymnastics Championships in 2017 will not take place in Bucharest, as initially announced, as Romania’s capital has failed to start the project of the new polyvalent hall that should have hosted the event. Luckily, the European Union of Gymnastics has acknowledged that the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, which takes care of organizing the event, was not to blame for the whole situation and decided to move the event to Cluj-Napoca, in central Romania. Cluj-Napoca has a new polyvalent hall, which was inaugurated in October 2014. The hall has 7,800 seats and has cost EUR 16 million to build. Bucharest’s City Hall announced in December 2013 that it would build a large polyvalent hall in the Lia Manoliu sports complex, near the National Arena. Romania’s Government, led at that time by Victor Ponta, pledged a EUR 50 million financing for the project. Based on these promises, the European Union of Gymnastics granted Romania the organizing of the European Gymnastics Championships in 2017. Romania hasn’t organized such an event in 58 years, since the very first edition of the competition, which took place in 1957. However, the Romanian authorities failed to meet their promises and delayed the new polyvalent hall project, as two foreign construction companies fought to get the contract. Austrian group Strabag presented a project with 11,000 seats, which cost EUR 55 million while Italian group Astaldi came with a 13,000-seat project, which required a total investment of EUR 65 million, according to ProSport.ro. The cost per seat in each case would have been EUR 5,000 (not including VAT), which is more than double the cost for the hall in Cluj-Napoca (some EUR 2,050 per seat). editor@romania-insider.com