2030 Winter Olympics: The French Alps are now alone on the track
After the Paris 2024 Games, France was to be entitled to another Olympic Games, those of winter in 2030. The IOC Executive Board has selected only one of the three declared candidates for this edition, that of the French Alps. A gamble won in record time for a project to be finalized in the coming months, with many challenges at stake.
Austria's Lukas Feurstein competes in the first run of the men's giant slalom at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Val-d'Isère, December 10, 2022, one of the venues that is expected to host the 2030 Olympic Games in France. AFP - JEFF PACHOUD
By: Christophe Diremszian Follow
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Who would have thought, before the summer, that France would organize two Olympic Games six years apart? Not many, except perhaps the promoters of a project submitted by two regional presidents and only made official in the middle of July. A blitzkrieg, a more convincing first project than that of its Swedish and Swiss competitors, who were launched into the race almost at the same time, and this is how the French Alps will most likely find themselves hosts of the 2030 Winter Olympics, thus prolonging the Olympic dream, as soon as the lights of Paris 2024 are extinguished.
The IOC's Future Host Commission, which is tasked with scrutinising projects, clearly did not hesitate much. Even if Switzerland is nevertheless invited to fine-tune its project until 2027 with a view to the 2038 Winter Games. The French application ticked many boxes: 95% of existing facilities, the smallest possible surface area - 500 km from north to south all the same - the experience of organising winter sports competitions and strong institutional, political and popular support if we are to believe the Olympic body, which commissioned a poll showing that 68% support for the project was in favour.
Invitation to the French Alps to participate in a targeted dialogue with a view to hosting the 2030 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games!
For the record, Albertville 1992 was the last Olympic Winter Games to be held in France! pic.twitter.com/cN31ucoNN8
— Olympic Games (@jeuxolympiques) November 29, 2023
Six months to complete the application
The map of the sites is drawn around four major competition centres, spread from Haute-Savoie (for Nordic skiing and biathlon) to Nice (for ice sports and the Olympic village), via Savoie for alpine skiing and Nordic combined, and the Hautes-Alpes department for acrobatic disciplines. The only uncertainty is about the speed rink oval. The one used for the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville no longer exists as such. Two options are being considered: a temporary structure or a relocation abroad.
Between now and next July, the date set for the final designation, the project will also have to specify several points: the operating budget of the future Organising Committee, currently estimated at 1.5 billion euros, security, the accessibility of the sites in view of the Paralympic Games organised in the aftermath, and of course the environmental impact in a context of mistrust from regional Green elected officials and a collective opposed to the Olympics.
The complete candidature file will have to be submitted in February 2024, followed by a monitoring and evaluation phase, with a site visit by the IOC in March-April, the final recommendation of the Future Host Commission in June and, if all goes well, the final designation at the IOC Session in Paris from 22 to 24 July. in the run-up to the Summer Games.
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« No one believed it »
France will then officially host the Winter Olympics for the fourth time in its history, after Chamonix in 1924, Grenoble in 1968 and Albertville in 1992. It was an exciting adventure for the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez, who felt "immense pride and a lot of emotion".
«
We are in the process of writing a new French adventure about the Olympic Games. When we left five months ago with Renaud (Muselier, his counterpart from the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, editor's note), no one believed it. We still left with the memory of the failure of Annecy (for the 2018 Winter Olympics), and we wanted to wash it away. France will vibrate with Olympism from 2024 to 2030, it's a great asset," said Mr. Wauquiez. And a motivating prospect for a young generation of athletes like Arthur Bauchet, 23, triple 2022 Paralympic champion in alpine skiing, for whom these Games are "more than a career goal, a life goal".
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