JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s sports ministry says it will not ask the government to reconsider a bid for the 2020 Olympics, ending a long-running saga over whether the country will try to host the next available Summer Games.
Sports ministry spokesman Paena Galane tells The Associated Press that “there will be no bid from South Africa for the 2020 Olympics.”
Galane said South Africa’s Minister of Sport, Fikile Mbalula, had considered asking the government to reconsider a bid after South Africa hosted the International Olympic Committee session in Durban in July.
The government initially decided against a 2020 bid in May.
Galane told the AP on Wednesday that the sports ministry had decided it was “not going to resubmit the request to bid.”
