Barcelona Wins Bid To Host America´s Cup In 2024
The 37th America´s Cup is to be hosted by the port of Barcelona in September and October 2024.
The decision was announced yesterday Friday 1st April by the current holders, Emirates Team New Zealand CEO, Grant Dalton, who said that: “Barcelona really is one of the most recognised cities in the world so to have the ability to host the most recognised sailing event in the world is hugely exciting. As Defender of the America’s Cup, we have always felt the responsibility to grow the event, the audience, and the sport of sailing on a global scale and certainly having the event hosted in a significant city such as Barcelona will allow us to propel the growth trajectory on the global sporting stage. When thinking ahead to the 37th America’s Cup and the AC75’s racing within a few hundred metres of the Barcelona beach, waterfront, and race village fan engagement zones it will be nothing less than spectacular.”
📢We are in luck! Barcelona will host the 37th edition of the America's Cup in 2024, @americascup, and #PortdeBarcelona, the main venue.
⛵️Sustainability and innovation will be the distinctive features of an edition that will boost the Barcelona brand around the world. pic.twitter.com/c75qQOWUBb
— Port of Barcelona (@portofbarcelona) March 29, 2022
The decision means that Barcelona is the first host venue which has also hosted an Olympic Games.
Barcelona was chosen a leading city in terms of sustainability and social impact with ambitions to become Europe’s digital and tech capital, as well as offering world class facilities for racing, team bases, technical infrastructure as well as near perfect sailing conditions during the September/October race window, with average wind speeds of 9-15 knots.
Barcelona’s bid saw an unprecedented alliance across public and private entities working together to attract the America’s Cup to Barcelona which included the regional Catalonian government, Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Global’s investment agency and Barcelona & Partners, a non-profit initiative composed of more than 200 of the city’s leading institutions aiming to make Barcelona one of the world’s best cities for talent and economic activity.
The president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Pere Aragonés, explained that the celebration of the America’s Cup in Barcelona is excellent news for the city and for the whole country, “It is an historic sporting event, which has a great projection worldwide at an international level, economically and for tourism”.
“The America’s Cup is not just an isolated sporting activity and offers significantly more than that to the Host Venue. It is an event that it will generate a return across many platforms over years and will leave a very important legacy for Catalonia.
The Mayor of the city of Barcelona, Ada Colau, said: “It is great news for Barcelona! This should serve to promote the city to the world after the pandemic, to benefit Barcelona’s tradition of this sport in a city by the sea and in addition, to boost the emerging sector of innovation and technology, linked to nautical activities”.
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