IOC Delegation Visits Calgary -- 2026 Roundup

(ATR) A six-member IOC delegation visits Calgary this week as the 1988 Winter Games host city works toward a decision on a possible bid for 2026.

The delegation was scheduled to tour facilities from the 1988 Olympics and meet with the city's Olympic project team, according to Canadian reports.

The IOC team also met with Calgary's city council on Wednesday and may have changed some minds.

Councillor Druh Farrell has been outspoken in her opposition to a 2026 bid. "I went into the meeting with some skepticism," she was quoted by the CBC as saying, "... but they did talk about fundamental change."

Farrell came away from the meeting pleased that the discussion centered on the cost of the event and changes to the IOC's governance. She also liked the fact that the delegation paid its own way to Calgary.

"To me, that's symbolic of an overall shift for the IOC — and they admitted it's because fewer cities are bidding, there's too much risk associated with it," Farrell said.

The Calgary City Council has made it clear that funding from other levels of government will be necessary if a bid is to be seriously considered.

In late November, the Calgary city council approved only half of a request for an additional CAN$2 million (US$1.57 million) toward preparing the city for a bid. The rest of the funds are to be released only if the province of Alberta and the Canadian federal government come on board and commit to sharing the cost of a bid committee.

The city of Calgary estimates that cost at between CAN$25 and CAN$30 million (US$19.5 million and US$23.4 million). The city council is set to revisit the issue on January 29.

The IOC visit to Calgary follows similar visits to Sion, Switzerland and Stockholm, two other potential 2026 bidders. A trip to Sapporo, Japan is planned ahead of the 2018 Games next month in Pyeongchang.

No New Venues Needed for Sapporo

A bid by Sapporo to host the 2026 Winter Games wouldn’t require any new competition venue construction.

But Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) president Tsunekazu Takeda says not all the venues would be in the northern Japanese city that hosted the 1972 Winter Games.

"It's ready to go," Takeda told AFP in an interview. "We would use all the facilities from the (1972) Sapporo Olympics. The sliding courses for bobsleigh and luge no longer exist, but we would use the Nagano tracks."

Nagano, which hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, is about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) southwest of Sapporo.

Takeda also addressed what appears to be the biggest obstacle to the bid. Should Sapporo win the right to host in 2026, it would mean that Asia would be hosting a third consecutive Winter Games following PyeongChang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022.

"Asia hasn't previously had three Winter Olympics in a row of course," said Takeda, who along with Sapporo mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto announced Sapporo's interest in staging the Games last November.

"But after Pyeongchang, nobody expected Beijing to win the next vote -- that was a real surprise, so we want to be prepared. All the venues are already in place to host the Games at any time."

The end of March is the deadline for cities interested in hosting in 2026 to submit a letter of intent to the IOC.

In October, the IOC Session will invite a number of interested cities to participate in the candidature stage. The candidature stage will last until September 2019. Candidate cities will then submit a single candidature file by January 2019, with a final decision made at the IOC Session in Milan in September 2019.

Written by Gerard Farek

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