Sapporo is finally dropping out of the race to host the 2030 Winter Games, but may still try for 2034, Japanese media is reporting.
Once seen as Salt Lake City’s biggest rival for another Olympics, Sapporo has struggled to build public support largely due to the bribery and bid-rigging scandal surrounding Tokyo’s 2020 Summer Games that were delayed a year because of COVID-19.
Even as recently as this week Sapporo was described as “ramping up efforts to revive” a 2030 bid with a new plan to prevent corruption backed by the city’s recently reelected pro-Olympics mayor, Akimoto Katsuhiro, GamesBids.com reported Wednesday.
Just a day later, Japanese news services were saying the bid was over, citing multiple unnamed sources. A meeting between Sapporo’s mayor and the head of the Japanese Olympic Committee, Yasuhiro Yamashita, is scheduled next week.
Neither had any comment about the 2030 bid ending — or about staying in the running for 2034 — when asked during the ongoing Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Japan’s Kyodo News reported.
The news agency said the Japanese Olympic leader “apparently accepts that it would be difficult for Sapporo to win the 2030 hosting rights based on the information it has gathered from International Olympic Committee sources” at the Asian Games.
The Japanese government is monitoring the issue, with the country’s chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, telling The Japan Times Friday morning that he was aware of reports about scrapping the 2030 bid.
“It’s important to obtain the support of the citizens of Sapporo, the people of Hokkaido and the general public in order to bid for the 2030 Winter Olympic Games. We’re aware that Sapporo and the JOC are currently discussing how to proceed,” Matsuno said.
Salt Lake City is bidding to host in 2030 or 2034, with a preference for the later date to avoid having to compete for domestic sponsorships with another Olympics in the United States, the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles,
Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games that’s behind the bid, applauded Sapporo for its “great efforts” as “a sister Olympic city.” Salt Lake City previously hosted the Winter Games in 2002, and Sapporo, in 1972.
“We recognize that it’s hard to get all of the elements together for a complete bid. But I also recognize that their long term future, particularly relative to climate change, is very positive,” Bullock said.
He added he would “applaud any city or country that works hard to support the Olympic and Paralympic movements. And that’s what Sapporo has done and will continue to do in the future.”
But Bullock had little to say about a Sapporo bid for 2034.
“For 2034, we just focus on our own bid and the strength of that bid and we feel pretty good about where we are,” the former chief operating officer of Utah’s last Olympics, in 2002, said.
IOC leaders had been expected to advance their preferred hosts for the 2030 and possibly the 2034 Winter Games to contract negotiations last December. Then there were only three candidates: Sapporo, Salt Lake City, and Vancouver, Canada.
Instead the IOC Executive Board delayed making a decision, citing a need to study the impact of climate change on the Winter Games. That allowed other bids to come forward for 2030, from Sweden, Switzerland and France.
It’s not clear where the demise of Sapporo’s on-again, off-again bid for 2030 leaves on the race. Vancouver has yet to secure needed government support, while Sweden and Switzerland are still readying their bids.
France, the late entry in the race, made headlines last month with a trip to IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, accompanied by the declaration, “France is moving forward, it is making good progress and it will not back down.”
There’s no set timetable for naming Olympic hosts under the IOC’s new, less formal bid process, but IOC leaders could make their picks for 2030 and 2034 when they meet in Mumbai, India, next week, ahead of the annual meeting of the full IOC membership.
Climate change and the possible rotation of future Winter Games among a preselected group of consistently cold sites are already on the IOC’s agenda for India, along with whether the 2030 and 2034 Olympics should be awarded at the same time.
But a more likely schedule for advancing Winter Games bid cities to what’s known as “targeted dialogue” is at the IOC Executive Board’s final meeting of the year, set for Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, with the final ratification vote by the full IOC membership in 2024.