There’s now just one unidentified contender in the race to host a Winter Games, joining Salt Lake City; Sapporo, Japan; Vancouver, Canada; along with a pair of new bidders, Sweden and Switzerland.
Previously, IOC Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi had said there was “new interest” that increased the total number of bidders to host the Winter Games in 2030 and 2034 or beyond.
Tuesday, Dubi declined to narrow down the places competing specifically for 2030, citing a “need to respect the confidentiality of those interested parties. They are very clear that they are interested in a future Games edition.”
But he made it clear during a virtual news conference that the contenders are already known, “except a sixth country which has not yet declared but is talking to us and they are not in continuous dialog. So the number is really six.”
The unidentified country could be France, once part of a so-called “European super bid” that apparently fizzled. Last month, French IOC member Guy Drut told L’Équipe that two of the country’s mountain regions should team up to bid for 2030.
Dubi said it is important to leave “maximum level of flexibility” in the bidding process to allow for “strategic elements” to be part of the discussion during what’s called the “continuous dialogue” stage of the IOC’s new, less formal bid process.
He pointed out Switzerland is not bidding specifically for 2030, instead saying “they are interested to talk to us about any future edition of the Winter Games, which is somewhat reassuring.”
That’s because “we can talk together about how to maximize the chances of Switzerland and the others, by the way, including into the distant future,” he said. “I really like this approach. It can have a really long-term view.”
Salt Lake City, Dubi said, has been “very clear” about bidding for 2030 and 2034, but wanting to wait until the later date, to avoid competing for domestic sponsorship revenues with Los Angeles, host of the 2028 Summer Games.
“When it comes to who’s interested about which edition, there is only one. And you know this is Salt Lake City that has declared that it is very open (to hosting in 2030). They’ve done a lot of work. But their preference would be for 2034,” Dubi said.
Bids by Sapporo and Vancouver for 2030 have been called into question by declining public support. Japanese Olympic officials has said they won’t support a bid from Sapporo until 2034 or later, while Vancouver still lacks needed government financial backing.
Swedish Olympic officials announced last week that a bid including Stockholm and other cities for 2030 was advancing to continuous dialogue with the IOC. a move that was welcomed as “good news” by the leader of Utah’s bid.
“Potentially they or someone else would fill the 2030 slot then we could be 2034,” Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, told the Legislature’s new new Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Coordination Committee.
Bullock, who served as the chief operating officer of Utah’s last Olympics, the 2002 Winter Games, said the “ideal scenario” for the bid also includes a dual award of the 2030 and 2034 Games next year.
The IOC Executive Board is set to hear an update on the Winter Games race Wednesday from the Switzerland-based organization’s Future Host Commission for the Olympic Winter Games.
“No decisions are expected,” Dubi said during the virtual news conference, held after the first of two days of executive board meetings this week. “It will be a lay of the land.”
A special session of the full IOC membership will be held Thursday to consider stripping the International Boxing Association’s Olympic status over a series of longstanding issues. There is nothing on the agenda related to the Winter Games bids.
The Future Host Commission is supposed to make recommendations in October about the impact of climate change and whether the Winter Games should be rotated among selected cities as well as if the 2030 and 2034 Olympics should be awarded together.
That could happen next year, when the IOC meets before the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. By the end of this year, however, the executive board could advance its picks for 2030 and 2034 to “targeted dialogue,” where hosting contracts are negotiated.