The president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blancohas ratified today, through a statement, the commitment of the COE with the candidacy to celebrate the 2030 Winter Olympics.
«The Spanish Olympic Committee will continue to work, as it has done so far, in the preparation of the necessary documentation for the presentation of a project for the Winter Games in the Pyrenees, Catalonia and Aragon, which meets the technical requirements of the International Olympic Committee. At the same time, the necessary contacts are continuing with the leaders of the governments involved, in order to materialize the presentation of this candidacy project as soon as feasible “, Blanco points out.
The Generalitat and the Government of Aragon continue to exhaust the options of presenting a joint candidacy of the Pyrenees, a unitary formula that is the only one provided by the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) and the central government.
No deadline
While it is true that Alejandro Blanco set May 20 as the deadline for a final agreement thinking not to be late with respect to other competing candidacies, there is no specific deadline to submit the Pyrenean candidacy, as he recalled the main adviser to the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Pere Miró.
First of all, the regions or the aspiring countries – this is the first difference: before they were just cities – do not have a fixed deadline to present their intentions to the IOC, as the new award rules approved by this body 2018 states that at any time “the interested party can enter into an ongoing dialogue without commitment to the IOC.”
The IOC Future Headquarters Commission is currently studying with the cities or regions what its project is like, what possibilities it has to go ahead and what changes it needs to make to gain in efficiency and sustainability – a key concept. And when it has identified the best option, it communicates it to the Executive of the body and it submits it to the vote of the assembly.
But first, in the case of this Spanish candidacy for 2030, there must be a three-party pact of the COE with Catalonia and Aragon, after the latter is demarcated from the technical agreement signed between the other parties l April 1, considering that the distribution of disciplines favored Catalonia.
No agreement
Javier Lambán insists that his government will be sitting “until the end” in the negotiations to be able to constitute a “balanced” and “equal” candidacy, although at the same time it has been dynamizing all the options of an agreement.
Lambán hopes to know a new proposal from the COE. Aragón showed its rejection of the first technical document, signed by the Generalitat and the central government, and drew up a counter-proposal which was not accepted. The Aragonese government intends to hold at least some alpine skiing events in its territory.
The Generalitat, for its part, remains in the same position as in recent weeks. “Nothing has changed,” they say from Plaça de Sant Jaume, where they reaffirm the agreement reached with the COE and the Spanish government, and do not even look down on the latest proposal on the table to break the blockade, which proposed adding ‘freestyle’ tests in Aragon in exchange for figure skating in Barcelona.
But Catalonia does not anticipate giving up much more ground and considers that it has always acted responsibly and loyally, both in the technical work and in the agreement it signed on 1 April.
