LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Tasked with a new city of venues to finalize, organizers of the 2030 French Alps Winter Games met Olympic leaders on Thursday during the latest reset in their project.
Since a formal handover from the International Olympic Committee in February in Milan, the next Winter Games dropped Nice as the main host city amid a venue dispute when a far-right mayor was elected, and hired a new director general after more executive exits.
In comparison, the 2034 Utah Winter Games is a low-key, drama-free option for the IOC.
In France on Monday, a fresh venue plan in Lyon for sports including ice hockey, figure skating and curling will be revealed in the city.
“The past few months have not been easy, I think that you’re aware of that,” French Alps organizing committee president Edgar Grospiron told IOC members. “We have been navigating a world full of obstacles.”
“Not been easy” would be an accurate slogan for an Olympic hosting project that started behind schedule when conceived in 2023.
When the French Alps was formally picked on the eve of the 2024 Paris Summer Games, it already was on the tightest timeline of any modern Olympic host with essential government sign-offs still pending and taken on trust.
Confirming a completely new host city — as Lyon was this week by the IOC executive board — less than four years from the opening ceremony also is unprecedented.
“The challenges that we have faced make us stronger,” Grospiron, once an Olympic champion in moguls skiing, told reporters on Thursday, “and the proposition we have today is even more solid than it was yesterday.”
Closer to the mountains
One upside is Lyon being closer to the mountains than Nice on the French Riveira coast, bringing most venues within three hours of travel time.
“We were very happy to work with Nice but Lyon brings a number of concrete advantages,” said Pierre-Olivier Beckers, an IOC vice president overseeing the unorthodox preparations.
A little more than three hours from the French Alps is the Netherlands, the chosen venue for speed skating in the sport’s heartland at Heerenveen.
A challenge in 2030 will be ensuring all athletes feel connected together, after the IOC got honest feedback from the Milan Cortina Winter Games that used venues scattered across the Dolomites mountains.
“What we have to avoid is these athletes feeling lonely in one corner of the country,” the IOC’s Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi said Thursday.
Venue options in Lyon
In Lyon next week, one confirmed venue could be ice hockey at the LDLC Arena which has hosted WWE wrestling events.
A candidate for the opening ceremony is the home stadium of Lyon, the storied soccer club that is set to be taken over by United States businesswoman Michele Kang. She already owns the hugely successful women’s club OL Lyonnes.
Monday shapes as a key stage for the French Alps team, which must deal with the French presidential election next year, and might just be setting an Olympic record for a complex modern Games organized in the least amount of time.
“Let’s speak about that in four years,” a smiling Grospiron said.
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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