No Shortage of Swiss Bids for 2026 Games

(ATR) Switzerland is just weeks away from deciding if it officially wants to launch a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Should the Swiss NOC come out in favor of a bid come Mar. 11, there will not be a shortage of potential candidates to host the Games.

Swiss newspapers on Sunday reported a new bid that would encompass multiple venues throughout the country. A committee, based in Bern, wants to have competitions held in Bern and Basel as well as in the Swiss Alps.

There have been three other areas that have already shown interest in hosting the 2026 Games: the canton of Valais, the Lake Geneva region and Graubünden, the canton where St. Moritz is located. St. Moritz played host the previous two times the Winter Games were held in Switzerland in 1928 and 1948.

Voters in Graubünden in 2013 defeated a referendum for the canton to host the 2022 Games.

"We appreciate the interest of several regions in bidding for Olympic Games in Switzerland but so far Swiss Olympic does not comment on specific ideas," Swiss Olympic spokesman Alexander Waefler tells Around the Rings.

"We have to wait until March 11th. That is when the member federations of Swiss Olympic come together for a congress where they will decide whether Switzerland (Swiss Olympic) should launch a bid or not."

Should the decision be positive, Waefler tells ATR that Swiss Olympic will announce a timeline – and the details of the process – for choosing which of the competing bids should be presented to the IOC in September 2017.

Written by Gerard Farek

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