Roma, Città Sportiva - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 150

nizing committee. in the Villa flaminia dei fratelli delle scuole Cristiane (Villa
flaminia of the brothers of Christian schools), a 12 m pool was deemed necessary
for athletes to warm up prior to entering the already existing 25 m version. fol-
lowing the closing ceremony, it was destined to become part of a private health
club. at the nearby flaminio sporting Club, the diggers were already excavating
for a second pool, in an area that the city authorities had previously declared
untouchable, when permission was granted for a huge pool for children (Zunino
2009, 7).
further out of the city on the banks of the tiber at settebagni, the salaria
sport Village's imposing additions to its existing facilities resulted in the first in-
quiry. at the expense of thirty eight million euros, the members-only club would
be blessed with a covered, olympic-sized, ten-lane pool, plus two more 25 m ver-
sions, one covered and one open-air. launched in January 2009, the investigation
considered any irregularities in the approval of these projects by the extraordi-
nary Commission for Rome 2009, after officials of the Rome municipality and
the Region of lazio had earlier “definitively” rejected the plans. it was the sort of
affair into which the president of the parliamentary Green party, angelo bonelli,
demanded an inquiry in april 2009: “we need to verify if all of the buildings
authorized by the Commission for the swimming world Championships were
directly tied to the event and if public money or the benefits of sporting credit
intended for the championships were used to build facilities that had nothing to
do with this important sporting competition” ( La Repubblica 2009, 5).
Roma sportiva futuristica
as the Comune di Roma and the italian olympic Committee assembled the city's
bid to host the 2020 olympic Games, the capital's development around sport and
the questions raised by the world swimming Championships were particularly
relevant. in addition to the plan to use four sites, the proposed infrastructural
changes such as metro improvements, the return of the tiber embankments as
a central axis of road traffic in the city, and the pedestrianization of the center
raised valid questions as to the extent that past lessons had been learned in terms
of the relationship between sport and urban development. The removal of Rome
from the bidding process, however, left this unanswered.
as pressure on space in Rome increases it seems inevitable that sporting
facilities will begin to encroach upon the lazio countryside, which will maintain
sport's omnipresent role in the city's development. Nonetheless, it is highly likely
that this will affect the capital's sporting identity, especially with the proposed
plans of as Roma and ss lazio to leave the stadio olimpico for their own stadi-
ums outside of the city center. should such moves materialize, responses to them
will offer an interesting comparison with the often fierce objection from many
english fans to their club's relocation. as bale (1993) suggests, many fans' love