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Winter Olympics 2030: this is how the candidate cities advance

2022-05-08T08:43:28.802Z


The Sapporo proposal is one step ahead, although the erosion of relations with the IOC during the pandemic detracts from its merits


Sapporo (Japan) is one step ahead.

The Japanese candidacy reaches the final phase of the selection process for the venue for the 2030 Winter Olympics with an advanced candidacy that places it with a certain advantage over the rest of the projects.

Salt Lake City (United States) and Vancouver (Canada) offer first-rate structures, although the project is not fully insured.

Barcelona-Zaragoza, for its part, seduces the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with an alternative proposal that would place the Pyrenees on the Olympic map as long as it overcomes the political blockade.

The international organization plans to announce its election between the first and second quarters of 2023, and does not rule out choosing the venues for 2030 and 2034 at the same time.

EL PAÍS analyzes the state of the four applicants together with Ander Mirambell, skeleton pioneer in Spain, and still active at 39 years old, and Enric Truñó, Barcelona sports, tourism and Olympic Games councilor (1979-1998) and commissioner of the Barcelona-Pirineus 2022 bid.

Sapporo.

It is currently the strongest proposal in the eyes of the IOC.

The bid was built with a view to the 2026 Games, but the 2018 Hokkaido earthquake, which left more than 40 dead, forced the Japanese government to change priorities to focus on rebuilding the affected areas.

The organization wants to use "the majority of current sports infrastructures", as the former head of the bid, Ryosuke Suzuki, admitted to EL PAÍS, and that they hosted part of the 1972 Games. The International Committee sees in the Japanese proposal a guarantee because there is little pending work: it does not depend on any electoral result, referendum or political agreement.

The memory of Tokyo 2020 plays against him, marked by the pandemic.

The appointment had to be postponed until the summer of 2021 and that created tensions between the IOC and the organizing committee over the way of managing the crisis.

Although the contest went ahead sportingly, some members of the International Committee admit between corridors that they do not keep a great memory of their relations with the Japanese government due to its complexity.

The proximity of the two appointments does not help either: nine years apart.

The IOC prefers to spread the Games across different continents and countries before returning to a territory that has just hosted.

In any case, there are contemporary precedents that minimize this issue: the United States hosted the 1996 Summer Games (Atlanta) and the 2002 Winter Games (Salt Lake);

and Beijing (China) hosted the summer in 2008 and the winter in 2022. Mirambell, in any case, claims to leave Asia: “The last two Winter Games have been in Korea (2018) and in Beijing;

and those of Summer have also been in prominence with Beijing (2012) and Tokyo (2020).

It is necessary to maintain the continental rotation”.

Salt Lake City

.

Arrive at the race as the revenant.

At the beginning of the year, he told the IOC his intention to prioritize the 2034 Games given the proximity of Los Angeles 2028. However, given the general uncertainty, he welcomes the possibility of hosting the 2030 event because it would not need major modifications.

It hosted the 2002 Games, and builds the current candidacy from the same infrastructures.

"The facilities are ready and well maintained," says Truñó.

Mirambell, however, warns that Park City in Utah, the site that hosts the bobsleigh circuit and jumps, requires a readjustment.

"The braking part of the circuit has fallen short and they have to put up safety mattresses," says the jumper, "and the springboard is already a few years old."

Salt Lake's latitude, north of the United States, is another plus point.

The climatic conditions in winter guarantee a good quality of snow and ice, Truñó points out, which is why winter sports are "deeply rooted in the territory".

The IOC, in any case, knows that behind the organizers of sporting events in the United States there are economic structures of private capital that observe the Games and the macro sporting events with a mainly lucrative interest.

“In the United States you will never see President Joe Biden act in favor of getting the appointment.

Entrepreneurs are the ones who pull the car, ”illustrates a source from the IOC.

In the current context of Olympic compensation, with the international committee interested in leaving behind the shadows of corruption from the beginning of the century through the Agenda 2020 program, and approaching the canons of sustainability demanded by the new generations, the organization knows that the organization process can move away from the purest Olympic idea.

The proximity to Los Angeles 2028, where the Summer Games are held,

Vancouver.

His future depends on the results of the municipal elections in the city, next October.

The political debate raises the need or not to hold a referendum that endorses a candidacy based on the success of the 2010 Games. "It is perhaps the candidacy with the most prepared technical project," analyzes Mirambell, who participated in the last Canadian Olympic event .

"They will have to invest very little because the facilities are good," he insists.

The winter climate and social interest, where winter sports are almost daily, reinforce the initiative.

The Canadian team's way of working also pleases the IOC, which understands that it would not have to interact as much with the private sector and would guarantee a more sustainable model.

"Vancouver made a brutal effort to reduce its environmental footprint in 2010 and be especially sustainable," says Truñó, who traveled that year to the Olympic event with the former mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jordi Hereu, father of the parent project Barcelona-Pirineus 2020, to learn the Canadian model.

“Canadians have social concerns and are currently seeking to repair the impact that First Nations (Indigenous) suffered.

The IOC likes all this”, understands the former Barcelona councilor.

Barcelona-Zaragoza

.

The political disagreement has pushed the candidacy to the limit, despite having the endorsement of the IOC since 2018. The Pyrenees 2030 project is the most different from the rest, and seduces the international organization with two ideas: the first, to place the Pyrenees in the international map.

"The IOC is interested in incorporating new mountain ranges into the Olympic family," interprets Truñó.

IOC sources admit that the proposal to revitalize the territory through the Games is precisely one of the objectives of the 2020 Agenda.

The second idea is surely the most important and, at the same time, the one that seems most difficult to execute.

The president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blanco, presents the candidacy as a tool for territorial and social union after the

process

;

and the IOC sees with very good eyes the agreement between the Generalitat de Catalunya and the central government through the Games.

What the COE did not expect is that the one who had to convince was the government of Aragon, which in recent weeks has turned the candidacy upside down by considering the distribution endorsed by the rest of the administrations to be "unfair".

The latest proposal offers Aragon a new distribution so that all the valleys of the Aragonese Pyrenees are represented, in exchange for skating going to Barcelona, ​​something that the Lambán government rejects again.

The discrepancies make Mirambell uneasy.

"Many of the politicians involved in the negotiation will be retired in 2030. That they come to an agreement for the common good," he asks.

Blanco set May 20 as the deadline to unblock the agreement, which would catapult the Catalan-Aragonese options after IOC sources admitted a few days ago to EL PAÍS that internal disputes had "reduced credibility" from the project.

If the COE achieves its objective, it will have to wait for the results of the referendum to be held in the Catalan Pyrenees on June 24 to endorse the proposal.

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Source: elparis

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