The president of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), Alejandro Blanco, has convened a press conference this Tuesday at 7 pm where he is expected to announce the definitive resignation to the candidacy to organize the Olimpic games (JOO) Winter 2030. Sources from the Spanish government and the COE have already ruled out the possibility of running in the race due to the reluctance and repeated obstacles of the government of Aragon to the joint candidacy approved by the technical teams. The COE is now working on the one hypothesis candidacy for 2034 which is not yet defined if it will be shared again between Catalonia and Aragon or if, as the Generalitat has proposed, it will basically gravitate towards the Catalan territory.
The candidacy for the 2030 Games was finally ruled out last week, once all negotiations between Aragon, on the one hand, and the COE and Catalonia, on the other, had failed. The last proposal already alone of the Government, the creation of a candidacy only with Catalonia, Blanco has not been convincedwho had worked so far for an agreement that would allow the two territories to reach an agreement and be represented in the games, as requested by the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez.
The COE and Catalonia had already rejected on June 7 the proposal of the Aragonese government, which after breaking away from the technical distribution agreement reached by the three parties at the end of March proposed a batch division in which Aragon and Catalonia remained a modality (male or female) of each competition. The formula, according to Aragon, would have guaranteed that these would be games “on equal terms”.
Sources in the Spanish executive attributed last week the difficulties of reaching an agreement with the Aragonese president, Javier Lambán, to the electoral competition that it maintains with the PP in its territory and the proximity of the regional elections of May 2023. Sources of the COE make a similar reading and accuses Aragon of having deliberately torpedoed the agreements reached without taking into account the revenue and the projection that the Games would have represented for its territory.
The same sources recall that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would have welcomed a European and Pyrenean candidacy, and say that they have done everything they can to make it viable. Now, however, “the candidacy for the 2030 Games is completely ruled out,” say voices in the negotiations, and the COE and the Spanish government are already working to build a new proposal for the 2030 Winter Olympics.
For now, facing 2034 there is no discarded formula. It is unclear whether or not the Spanish government will accept a candidacy from Catalonia alone or whether it will try again to reach an agreement between Catalonia and Aragon.
