According to Olympic leaders themselves, the future of the bidding for the Winter Games is threatened by internal disputes in the Indian Olympic committee, the desire to make the selection process less cumbersome and the need to recognize the impact of climate change.
But what hasn’t been said is the main reason: It has become almost impossible to find anywhere outside of Salt Lake City where there is a real desire to host these competitions.
This is a reality that has been brewing for decades and, according to the International Olympic Committee itself, could soon reach a breaking point.
Christophe Dubi, the IOC’s director general for the Games, slipped into a meeting last week the idea that the short list of eligible cities could be further narrowed by the realities of a warming planet with fewer mountainous towns to accommodate. the Winter Olympics realistically.
This, in turn, leads to the idea that the Olympic Games could one day rotate between just a handful of cities. The idea has long been mooted for the Summer and Winter Games, as the skyrocketing budgets and unused infrastructure left behind by the Olympics become as inevitable as the kindling of a flame.
“No conclusion has been reached yet, and this requires further discussion,” Dubi said.
For now, the plan seems to point to the simultaneous granting of the venue for the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games, just as happened five years ago with the Summer Games, when the IOC designated Paris and Los Angeles as respective hosts of the 2024 games. and 28.
At the time, the IOC also feared that the number of potential candidates would be reduced.
It has not been decided when that double bestowal will come from hosting the Winter Games. The 2026 jousting will take place in Italy.
The decision was originally expected to be made next year, during the IOC assembly in India, but that meeting has been postponed indefinitely due to fractures within that country’s Olympic committee, which must be mended before there is any compromise with a date.
The postponement gave the IOC a convenient reason to delay the decision.
Among the three cities that have made serious proposals to host the Games, only Salt Lake City seems ready. Earlier this year, the British Columbia provincial government dealt a near-fatal blow to Vancouver’s bid, deeming the $1.2 billion public funding required too high.
Sapporo, Japan, remains among the contenders, although there are questions about public support for bringing the Olympics back to the country, after the Summer Games were postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19 and clouded by corruption.
If the IOC gets what it wants, it would ensure that the Games are held in Sapporo and Salt Lake as soon as possible. He would then try to define the next steps, which would include finding one or two European locations willing to join the rotating group.