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IOC casts net for Winter Games hosts in ‘troubled times’

By AFP
October 18, 2017

LAUSANNE: The International Olympic Committee finds itself battling the weight of public pressure in potential host cities as it casts its net to find suitable candidates for the Winter Games amid concerns over costs and the merits of hosting multi-sport events.

Next year’s Winter Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, while Beijing hosts in 2022. The official bidding process for 2026 starts next year with the IOC due to make a decision in Milan in autumn 2019.

But the IOC were dealt a hammer blow at the weekend when the Austrian state of Tyrol voted against Innsbruck’s bid for 2026, citing concerns over the high financial cost and environmental impact.

That begs the question of how many bid cities will be unveiling their projects in 2019. There were just two in 2015, with Beijing beating the Kazakh city of Almaty for the right to host in 2022.

Pyeongchang held off bids from Munich and Annecy.

While several bid cities (Hamburg, Boston, Rome, Budapest) pulled out of attempting to win hosting rights to the 2024 Summer Olympics, attributed to Paris with Los Angeles to host in 2028, Innsbruck’s withdrawal is a timely reminder that finding suitable cities is not a given.

The result of the referendum in Tyrol, with more than 53 percent of the population voting against, was “a setback but overall it’s not disastrous”, argued Jon Tibbs, head of the JTA agency and communications adviser to the LA bid for the 2024-28 Summer Games.

“It was a mistake to have this Tyrol referendum so early. The referendum created more questions than answers. They were not in a rush, they should have explained more before having this referendum.”

The IOC said it would have liked to continue its preliminary talks with Innsbruck, sharing “the disappointment for the Austrian Olympic Committee, the many supporting athletes and the promoters of the project who worked on it with so much energy and committment”.

Fresh talks with interested cities from North America, Asia and Europe will now go ahead, an IOC spokesperson said, with meetings already held with representatives from the Swiss city of Sion, Calgary in Canada and Stockholm.

To these three cities should be added an American venue, the US Olympic Committee confirming Friday it would be “interested” in hosting, though unsure of whether for 2026 or 2030.

Denver, Reno-Tahoe and Salt Lake City, host of the 2002 Winter Olympics — the last organised by the US — are interested, while Japan’s 1972 hosts Sapporo and Almaty could also join the running.

Hopes of the 2026 Games going to Switzerland are also up in the air, with Sion at the mercy of a public referendum complicated by that country’s federal system of governance.

“We noted the decision made by the Tyrol public, which shows how it is so important to communicate as widely as possible,” Sion bid president Jean-Philippe Rochat told AFP.“Public voting is envisaged when all costs and their distribution are known. Our timing and approach are slightly different (from Innsbruck).”

Rochat, a former vice-president of the Swiss ski federation, said he was “convinced that when all the margins of costs are known and communicated”, the population will realise that “Sion proposes a really new approach, completely realistic and transparent, which will allow the entire region to benefit from a positive legacy from the Olympics”.

The last Winter Olympics held in Sochi was a template for excessive overspend, leading the IOC to draw up its Agenda-2020 to cut costs of both the bidding process and actual organisation in a bid to attract potential host cities.

“The Agenda 2020 reform narrative is good. But the IOC could maybe do more to make it even stronger and communicate it where bid referenda are taking place,” Tibbs said.Should there be just two cities bidding for 2026, IOC member Richard Peterkin said he could see a double awarding to also include 2030.

“Either way, it’s a setback for the Olympic Games,” he tweeted in reaction to the Innsbruck withdrawal. “Not unsurmountable, and somewhat understandable, but new initiatives and responses to issues affecting public unease and displeasure with sports organisations (doping, corruption) need urgent closure.Peterkin added: “Dual award now looking possible for 2026 if two strong bids remain in the running.”