Turkey is likely to host the Mediterranean Games in 2013 after Greece dropped the right to host the event as a result of the economic recession, local media reported Thursday.
President Amar Addadi of the International Committee of Mediterranean Games has asked southern Turkish province of Mersin to build two or three new sports halls and a sports village for the games, Turkish Youth and Sports Department Director-General Yunus Akgul told Anatolia news agency, Xinhua reported.
The Greek city of Volos had been chosen to host the games before the Greek government announced it would relinquish the right after being battered by the global financial crisis.
Meanwhile, Turkey saw economy quickly emerge from the crisis with a year-on-year growth of 11.8 percent, 10.2 percent and 5.5 percent in the first, second and third quarter of last year respectively.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent a letter to the International Committee of Mediterranean Games to express the government's guarantee to host the 2013 event, Anatolia reported.
Akgul said Libya and Spain were the other candidates for the games but that Mersin's chance was higher as Spain had hosted the event in 2005.
Addadi would make his final decision on the venue of the games within a month, with the first vote to take place on February 23 and the second one on February 28. The country receiving 51 percent of votes will become the hosting country.
The Mediterranean Games are a multidisciplinary sports event organised for countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea every four years. The first Mediterranean Games were held in Alexandria of Egypt in 1951 and the last took place in Italy's Pescara in 2009.
Turkey's Aegean province of Izmir hosted the Sixth Mediterranean Games in 1971.