PARIS (AP) — Talks to give cross-country running and cyclocross Olympic status in the Winter Games have begun, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said Thursday at the Paris Summer Games.
The two events could share a course for racing, Coe suggested, with the added goal of giving African nations that are strong in cross-country a path into winter sports.
“It really does give Africa the opportunity to be a serious part of the Olympic Games,” he said at a news conference on the day track and field started in Paris.
Olympics hosts can now ask to add their own favored events, and the 2030 Winter Games will be in the French Alps then the 2034 edition in Salt Lake City.
Coe revealed “tentative discussions” have started with the United States Olympic body and organizing officials from Utah.
With just 116 medal events at the 2026 Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Games, there is space in the program at future editions, though the International Olympic Committee’s rules have been a barrier.
“Only those sports which are practiced on snow or ice are considered as winter sports,” the IOC’s Olympic Charter states.
Cross-country and cyclocross typically are raced on muddy and hilly courses that are traditional winter options for runners and riders. The current men’s world champion in cyclocross, Mathieu van der Poel, also stars in road cycling and was the 2023 worlds gold medalist.
Any formal proposal to insert the two new events into the Winter Olympics would have influential friends in the IOC.
Coe said he is working with International Cycling Union president David Lappartient, his fellow IOC member who also leads the French Olympic body and shaped its 2030 candidacy. Lappartient is seen as an increasingly close ally of Thomas Bach, the IOC’s hands-on president.
“David is very keen,” Coe said, adding “there is a lot of goodwill” for cross-country’s return to Olympic status more than 100 years after it was run at the 1924 Summer Games in Paris.
“Its obvious home is the winter,” Coe said.
The IOC reiterated Thursday the 2030 Olympics events program should be finalized before the end of 2027.
The Olympic body did not address questions about if it is currently considering a proposal to add cross-country and cyclocross.
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