On Wednesday evening (November 29th, 2023) a preliminary decision was made as to who will host the Winter Olympics from 2030 to 2038. The IOC prefers France and the USA as hosts.
The IOC leadership plans to host France for the 2030 Winter Games. The next edition of the Winter Olympic spectacle is scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City in 2034. The executive board of the International Olympic Committee led by President Thomas Bach made this decision on Wednesday at a meeting in Paris. Sweden was also in the running. Switzerland should receive preferential treatment for the 2038 edition of the Olympics if it applies again.
The so-called targeted dialogue now begins with the applicants in accordance with the IOC’s new selection process with preferred organizers. In this phase, negotiations will only be held with these candidates; the Olympic concept should be brought to final maturity. Next year, the IOC General Assembly will give the final award for the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games. The IOC session had already decided on a double award in October.
Problems finding hosts
The host for 2030 was actually supposed to be decided at the Rings Circle meeting in October in Mumbai. But potential favorites had stopped their efforts and thus put the IOC in trouble.
Sapporo, Japan, withdrew its application due to the turmoil surrounding the corruption scandal surrounding the Summer Games in Tokyo. Vancouver received no guarantees of public funding. Salt Lake City was reluctant to enter the race for 2030 because the US Summer Games are already taking place in Los Angeles in 2028.
The IOC recently encouraged other interested parties to make an attempt for 2030. The Swiss sports parliament had only approved an application the previous week. In France and Sweden, the Olympic projects had also overcome crucial hurdles on the way to an application in recent weeks. France is sending a group of former winter hosts Chamonix (1924), Grenoble (1968) and Albertville (1992) as well as Nice into the race.
There are fewer and fewer countries that are safe from snow and ice
The next Winter Games are scheduled for 2026 in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy. In the long term, however, the winter spectacle is a problem area for the IOC due to climate change. According to researchers’ calculations, only ten countries will still have enough snow and ice to host winter games from 2040 onwards.
