And then there were two.
Utah’s odds of hosting the 2030 Winter Games improved significantly Wednesday following the announcement that British Columbia will not support Vancouver’s Olympic bid.
Without that support, it is expected the field will now be down to just Utah and Sapporo, Japan, with one expected to be singled out as soon as December.
Vancouver strived to host the first indigenous-led bid for the Olympics, but the costs would have fallen mostly to the province of British Columbia, and its government declined to pursue the effort.
“I know that the prospect of hosting these Games is exciting to athletes and sports fans. However, the Province has the responsibility to weigh the benefits with the costs and possible risks of the project,” Lisa Beare, the British Columbia Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, said in a statement Wednesday.
“There are billions of dollars in direct costs, and potential guarantee and indemnity liability risks on this project that could jeopardize our government’s ability to address pressures facing British Columbians right now.”
Vancouver had been considered a strong candidate for 2030 and a pivotal player in Utah’s bid to host its second Winter Olympics.
One of Salt Lake City’s trump cards in the bid to host the Games is that it fits almost perfectly within the International Olympic Committee’s new focus on sustainability. Yet Vancouver was a model example for that new tack as well. Those two are the only Olympic sites that still have 100% of their venues in use. And like Utah, Vancouver’s Games, held in 2010, were considered a booming success.
However, the IOC likes to spread its marquee events out among different regions. And concerns had bubbled up that if either Salt Lake City or Vancouver was picked as host for 2030, that could have scuttled the other’s hopes to host in 2034 — especially since Los Angeles will hold the Summer Games in 2028.
Fraser Bullock, who is leading the effort to return the Olympics to Utah as the president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, said B.C.’s withdrawal underscores how challenging it can be to get all the pieces in place to make a bid.
“I applaud them for their efforts in trying to host the Games because hosting the Games is immensely challenging,” Bullock said. “So I applaud them for giving it a try. But it is understandable why, with the background of British Columbia, they are withdrawing. We just respect the effort they put in to try to host again.”
Sapporo, now Utah’s only competition, has undergone its own difficulties of late. Only about half the people in the Hokkaido region support hosting the Games. Plus, a bribery scandal that occurred during the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo cast a shadow over another Japanese bid.
Bullock said Vancouver’s withdrawal does not change anything in regard to how Utah will approach the bid process.
“For us, we just continue forward,” he said. “It doesn’t change our path.”
A Future Host Commission is expected to give its recommendation for the 2030 host to the IOC’s executive board next month. The board could enter into a targeted dialog phase with a city by early December. If the city it chooses at that time is able to fulfill all its contracts and obligations, it will be named the host at the IOC’s general meeting in October 2023.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/Nv3DSHR
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