Sapporo (Japan) has a head start. The Japanese bid is reaching the decisive phase of the site selection process for the 2030 Winter Olympics with an advanced bid that puts it with some advantage over the rest of the projects. Salt Lake City (USA) and Vancouver (Canada) offer first-rate structures, even if the project is not fully insured. Barcelona-Zaragoza, for its part, seduces the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with an alternative proposal which would place the Pyrenees on the Olympic map on condition of overcoming the political blockade. The international organization plans to announce its election between the first and second quarters of 2023, and does not rule out choosing the venues for 2030 and 2034 at the same time.
EL PAÍS analyzes the state of the four candidates with Ander Mirambell, pioneer of skeleton in Spain, and still active at 39, and Enric Truñó, adviser for sports, tourism and the Olympic Games in Barcelona (1979-1998) and commissioner of the Barcelona- Bid Pirineus 2022.
Sapporo. This is currently the strongest proposition in the eyes of the IOC. The bid was built for the 2026 Games, but the 2018 Hokkaido earthquake that killed more than 40 people forced the Japanese government to shift priorities to focus on rebuilding affected areas. The organization wants to use “the majority of current sports infrastructure”, as former bid manager Ryosuke Suzuki admitted to EL PAÍS, and that they hosted part of the 1972 Games. The International Committee sees in the Japanese proposal a guarantee because there is little outstanding work: it does not depend on any electoral result, referendum or political agreement.
The memory of Tokyo 2020 plays against him, marked by the pandemic. The meeting had to be postponed to the summer of 2021 and this created tension between the IOC and the organizing committee over how to handle the crisis. Even if the competition took place sportingly, some members of the International Committee admit between corridors that they do not have a great memory of their relations with the Japanese government because of its complexity.
The proximity of the two appointments does not help either: nine years apart. The IOC prefers to spread the Games over different continents and countries before returning to a territory that has just hosted. In any case, there are contemporary precedents that minimize this problem: the United States hosted the 1996 Summer Games (Atlanta) and the 2002 Winter Games (Salt Lake); and Beijing (China) hosted summer in 2008 and winter in 2022. Mirambell, in any case, claims to be leaving Asia: “The last two Winter Games were in Korea (2018) and in Beijing; and those of the summer were also honored with Beijing (2012) and Tokyo (2020). We must maintain the continental rotation”.
Salt Lake City. Arrive at the race as a revenant. Earlier this year, he told the IOC that he intended to prioritize the 2034 Games given the proximity of Los Angeles 2028. However, given the general uncertainty, he welcomes the possibility to host the 2030 event as it would not need major modifications. It hosted the 2002 Games, and built the current bid from the same infrastructure. “The facilities are ready and well maintained,” says Truñó. Mirambell warns, however, that Park City in Utah, the site that hosts the bobsled circuit and the jumps, needs readjusting. “The braking part of the circuit is insufficient and they have to install safety mattresses”, explains the jumper, “and the springboard is already a few years old”.
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Another positive is Salt Lake’s latitude in the northern United States. The climatic conditions in winter guarantee a good quality of snow and ice, Truñó points out, which is why winter sports are “deeply rooted in the territory”.
The IOC, in any case, knows that behind the organizers of sporting events in the United States are hidden economic structures of private capital which observe the Games and the sporting macro-events with a mainly profit interest. “In the United States, you will never see President Joe Biden act in favor of getting the nomination. It is the contractors who pull the car, ”illustrates a source from the CIO. In the current context of Olympic compensation, with the international committee anxious to emerge from the shadow of the corruption of the beginning of the century through the Agenda 2020 program, and to approach the canons of sustainability demanded by the new generations, the organization knows that the organization can move away from the purest Olympic idea. Proximity to Los Angeles 2028, where the Summer Games are taking place, also limits their choice.
Vancouver. Its future depends on the results of the municipal elections in the city next October. The political debate raises the need or not to hold a referendum which endorses a candidacy based on the success of the 2010 Games. “It is perhaps the candidacy with the most prepared technical project”, analyzes Mirambell, who participated in the last Canadian Olympic event. . “They will have to invest very little because the facilities are good,” he insists. The winter climate and the social interest, where winter sports are almost daily, reinforce the initiative.
The Canadian team’s way of working also appeals to the IOC, who understand that they wouldn’t have to interact as much with the private sector and would ensure a more sustainable model. “Vancouver made a brutal effort to reduce its environmental footprint in 2010 and be especially sustainable,” says Truñó, who traveled to the Olympic event that year with former Barcelona mayor Jordi Hereu, father of the parent project Barcelona-Pirineus. 2020, to learn the Canadian model. “Canadians have social concerns and are currently seeking to repair the impact that First Nations (Aboriginal people) have suffered. The IOC likes it all,” the former Barcelona councilman understands.
Barcelona-Zaragoza. Political disagreement has pushed the candidacy to its limits, despite the IOC’s endorsement since 2018. The Pyrenees 2030 project is the most different from the others, and seduces the international organization with two ideas: the first, to place the Pyrenees on the map international. “The IOC is interested in integrating new mountain ranges into the Olympic family”, interprets Truñó. IOC sources admit that the proposal to revitalize the territory through the Games is precisely one of the objectives of Agenda 2020.
The second idea is surely the most important and, at the same time, the one that seems the most difficult to execute. The President of the Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blanco, presents the candidacy as a tool for territorial and social union after the process; and the IOC sees very favorably the agreement between the Generalitat de Catalunya and the central government through the Games. What the COE did not expect was that the one who had to convince was the government of Aragon, which in recent weeks has turned the candidacy upside down by considering as “unfair” the distribution endorsed by the rest of the administrations. The last proposal proposes to Aragon a new distribution so that all the valleys of the Aragonese Pyrenees are represented, in exchange for skating going to Barcelona, which the Lambán government rejects again.
The differences make Mirambell uncomfortable. “Many politicians involved in the negotiation will be retired in 2030. Let them agree for the common good,” he asks. Blanco has set May 20 as the deadline to unlock the deal, which would catapult Catalan-Aragonese options after IOC sources admitted days ago to EL PAÍS that internal disputes had “reduced the credibility” of the project. If the COE achieves its goal, it will have to wait for the results of the referendum to be held in the Catalan Pyrenees on June 24 to ratify the proposal.
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