“The die is cast”: after an express campaign and a file put together in a few weeks, France will find out this Wednesday if it has convinced the IOC to remain in the running to organize the Winter Olympics in 2030, a daring bet while Paris hosts the Summer Olympics in eight months.
The French Alps will hold their breath late Wednesday afternoon. “Everything has been done, the IOC no longer needs to make a decision,” summarizes an executive from the Olympic movement.
The IOC’s announcement is expected to come around 6 p.m. at the Salon Hoche in Paris, where the Olympic conclave meets from Wednesday to Friday for an executive commission.
Shortly before today, the commission of the future host for these Winter Games will present its recommendations to the members of the IOC for the 2030 and 2034 editions. It is up to the IOC to then choose whether or not to enter a “dialogue phase” , with one or more candidates, officially signifying for the candidate(s) excluded from this dialogue, the end of the dream.
On the other hand, “it’s serious,” explains this source, for whom Sweden, an unsuccessful candidate for the 2026 Olympics, and Switzerland, “are still two behemoths.”
Imagining a new Olympic adventure, six years after the Paris Olympics, gives an idea of the level of ambition that France has set for itself by applying for the 2030 Olympics. “Except that the spacing between the two Olympic Games is not really a subject. It could even be an asset,” assures a source close to the French Olympic movement.
So far, the project carried by the two French regions Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur has passed the obligatory milestones relating to the agenda set by the Olympic administration. Namely, the file submitted on time on November 7, and a thirty-minute grand oral on the 21st, in front of the members of the dedicated IOC commission, with the Minister of Sports accompanied by the two regional presidents Renaud Muselier, Laurent Wauquiez, and the president of the French Olympic committee David Lappartient.
The project, which ensures that it is based on 95% of existing sites, extends from Nice to Grand Bornand, nearly 500 km apart, with an alpine ski center on the sites of Courchevel-Méribel and Val d’Isère, the cross-country skiing in La Clusaz, and an Olympic village based in Nice, as are the skating events. It is also in Nice that the only construction of the project, the ice rink, is planned.
A “perfectly coherent” project, for ex-biathlon star and IOC member Martin Fourcade who is in Tignes for the Etoiles du sport, and which “would also do good for our mountains”.
The French candidacy took a decisive turn before the summer. Barely elected head of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) to replace Brigitte Henriques at the end of May, David Lappartient, also a member of the IOC, boosted a project which seemed to be losing momentum.
It is difficult to assess France’s chances of continuing its campaign or not. “With the IOC, in this scenario, it is very difficult to identify a favorite,” whispers to AFP a connoisseur of the mysteries of the body.
This candidacy does not only have support. Environmental federations EELV had denounced this summer “a presidential guarantee which would go against laws on zero net artificialization and which would make fun of water shortages, the Olympics leading to a phenomenal acceleration in the concreting of our beautiful mountains”.
The question of snow cover, which is weakening from year to year, as well as that of the paradox of investing massively in winter sports in the midst of global warming, are regularly raised by opponents.
“Clearly, this application is nonsense. We need to think about investing to get out of an economy based on winter sports. The mountains do not need these Olympics,” said one of the members of the “NO JO” collective, wishing to remain anonymous.
