To hear world Olympic leaders say, the long-term bid for the Winter Olympics has been clouded by internal conflicts within the Indian Olympic Committee, a new affinity for simplifying the bidding process and, at most recently, a long-awaited nod to that effect. on climate change.
The undeclared may be the main reason for everyone: It becomes almost unlikely to find a place, outside of Salt Lake City, that needs to host those events.
It’s a truth that’s been in the works for decades, and that the IOC says could soon succeed at a tipping point, when its Olympic Games chief executive, Christophe Dubi, floated the concept at an assembly last week that the limited list of eligible cities may simply shrink.
This, in turn, leads to the concept that the Olympics may one day swap between a handful of cities, a concept that has long been posited for summer and winter as bloated budgets and overburdened Olympic host infrastructure as inevitable as lighting. fire.
“No conclusions have been drawn yet, as this requires debate,” Dubi said.
For now, the plan appears to be to award the 2030 and 2034 Games at the same time, in the same way the IOC awarded Paris and Los Angeles the 2024 and 2028 Summer Games five years ago, while facing an equally small pool of potential bidders.
The date on which the double praise for the next Winter Games could arrive is yet to be determined (the 2026 Olympic Games will be held in Italy). They were due to be at next year’s IOC assembly in India, but that assembly was postponed. indefinitely due to fractures within the country’s Olympic committee that want to be healed before the IOC does. Commit to a date.
The postponement gave the IOC a convenient explanation for why to delay the decision.
Of the 3 cities that have made serious proposals to host, only the Salt Lake City offer is ready. Earlier this year, B. C. ‘s provincial government dealt a fatal blow to a bid in Vancouver, saying the needed public investment of $1. 2 billion was too big a bill. shortly after the corrupt and delayed COVID-19 Summer Games held in 2021.
If the IOC has its way, it will block Sapporo and Salt Lake as soon as possible, and then follow through with the next steps, which would most likely consist of locating one or two European cities willing to participate.
“By the way it was presented, which is through a double assignment, we would buy time and then identify a falsified rotation system,” IOC President Thomas Bach said of the procedure explained to IOC leaders through Dubi’s preparation group.
It is that a host in a remote rotation formula can come just from Asia, although the last 3 Winter Games have been held in that continent in a turn that has revealed the weakness of the franchise.
First, the time zone has made it a ratings killer in the West, where NBC will pay a lot of cash to televise the Games in the United States. Second, two of those Olympics were held in authoritarian countries, Russia and China. These countries necessarily produced blank checks (over $50 billion for Sochi; unknown to Beijing) and 0 ethical compasses (Russia created a doping crisis abroad, while China used the COVID-19 pandemic as justification to be even more opaque than usual) to produce Olympics that proved less than acceptable to many participants and spectators. Would the IOC have the courage to make these countries permanent host partners?
In addition, there were two candidates for 2022, China and Kazakhstan, who left the IOC to face the shameful truth that no one in the West needs to do that anymore.
Except, apparently, for Salt Lake City.
The rotation formula (whatever many Olympic observers consider long overdue) may be a less difficult sell for the Winter Games because of climate change. It has long been a staple of the Winter Games, not only because there are enough genuine things, but also because it is less difficult to practice and practice skiing and snowboarding.
More applicable is a recent study in “Current Issues in Tourism” that predicted that without drastic relief in global greenhouse gas emissions, only one of the last 21 Olympic winter venues could provide reliably fairs and venues through the end of this century. .
“Taking a break from the procedure to have that broader conversation, looking into the studios and seeing how it affects movement on the winter side, as well as the summer side, is a vital step for what they’re doing. Right now,” said Salt Lake bid chair Catherine Raney-Norman.
The leaders of the U. S. Olympic and Paralympic CommitteeThe U. S. welcomed the IOC’s debate on a new format imaginable. While Lake Placid and Denver rarely seriously consider getting into the lodging business, CEO Sarah Hirshland left no doubt about Salt Lake City’s position in that conversation.
“All together we had a smile on our faces when we heard this news,” Hirshland said. “This is a region and a component of the country that will be in a position to host those Games. “
The big thing is: who else is it?
In Europe, Stockholm and Barcelona are among those that have entered and exited the auction game in recent cycles. Given recent trends in the organization of foreign sports, it is sensible to keep an open mind. Saudi Arabia recently won the right to host the Asian 2029 Winter Games. It is spending $500 billion to build a winter wonderland that the host says will be carbon neutral, but has earned the scorn and ridicule of nearly every corner of the world.
The IOC said it had never been consulted on the deal and that its priorities were sustainability and fee reduction. Which sounds like a “No” when you want a few more to say “Yes. “
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