The International Olympic Committee cited concerns over climate change on Friday for its wish to pick two Winter Olympics hosts next July — putting Salt Lake City quickly into play for the 2034 edition.
IOC president Thomas Bach said the Olympic body aims to pick hosts for both the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games at its meeting on the eve of the Paris Games next year.
“We got an update from the future host the commission for the Olympic Games because we have asked the future host commission for the Winter Games to evaluate the future allocation of the Winter Games following two main criteria, one for sustainability reasons the future Olympic Winter Games almost should have a target of using only existing or temporary when use, and second proposed snow competition venues should be climate reliable, until at least till end halfway this century,” Thomas Bach said.
“Following these two criteria, there were two studies commissioned by the Commission, one to identify the National Olympic Committees with the most existing relocated venues,” he added.
Sweden, Switzerland and France have been working on possible bids for the 2030 edition and Salt Lake City officials have long targeted 2034. That would prevent the United States from hosting back-to-back Olympics after the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
The IOC has declining options for Winter Games hosts with Bach suggesting only 15 national Olympic committees across three continents meet the criteria: that they have at least 80 per cent of existing venues for snow sports and a “climate-reliable” outlook to host snow events in future decades.
“Another study to check if these existing homologated venues would be climate reliable until at least the middle of this century. Today, the future holds the commission for the Olympic Winter Games presented the first results of these studies there are 15 National Olympic Committees on three continents that have at least 80 per cent of existing venues, which means that they have at least nine out of the 11 required venues for snowsports. Ten out of these 15 have either recently hosted the games or are interested in hosting the Games in the future by 2040,” the IOC president said.
“Two of these 15 will no longer have the necessary reliability for the Olympic Winter Games held in February and five even for the Paralympic Games held in March. That means that by 2040, there remain practically just 10 National Olympic Committees that could host Olympic Winter Games.
“And from these numbers, it becomes even clearer that we need to address very quickly these dramatic impacts of climate change on winter sports and the Winter Games. The future hosts the commissioner has already started to address this very concerning situation,” he added.
The double award proposal by the Bach-chaired IOC executive board must get approval by the full membership at their annual meeting that opens Sunday.
That should be a formality.
“This implies deliberations on the rotation system the composition of the programme the different needs for sports on ice and snow and many others. From all of these, you can already see that this is a very complex issue and we need some more time to address these properly. This cannot be done in the next six months or even in the next 12 months. This is one of the reasons, if not the main reason, why the future host commission is proposing a double relocation of two successive Olympic Winter Games for 2030 and 34. If all conditions are met, in order to gain more time to address the dramatic impact of climate change,” Thomas Bach said.
(With inputs from AP)
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