Flexibility a Strength in Sapporo's 2026 Bid

This is the fifth in a series by Around the Rings analyzing the seven declared interested 2026 Olympic bidders announced by the IOC on April 3.

(ATR) Sapporo is considered by many to be the IOC’s security blanket in the process to choose the host city for the 2026 Winter Games.

Despite the IOC’s assertion that it is looking for a traditional winter sports city from either Europe, North America or Asia to win the bid, it’s no secret that a third straight Asian city hosting a Winter Games would not be the first choice. Sapporo has acknowledged that.

But should the European bids and the Calgary project fall by the wayside, Sapporo would be an excellent backup option. The city hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics and much more recently the 2017 Asian Winter Games. The bid has strong support among all stakeholders, makes use of legacy venues from 1972 and unlike many of the other projects does not need to worry about a referendum.

Sapporo has also seemingly sweetened the pot for the IOC by admitting that they are amenable to hosting in either 2026 or 2030.

The city’s mayor, Katsuhiro Akimoto, is taking nothing for granted, telling Around the Rings in a statement "I have the impression that each city, including Sapporo, has strong potential for bidding with abundant experience on international winter sports games."

Akimoto added that he "will have further discussions with the JOC, the Central Government, and the municipalities concerned and carefully look into the possibility of an official bid for the 2026 Games."

He has been working on the project for a while. The Sapporo government presented its plan to the Japanese Olympic Committee in November of 2016. The JOC signed off on the project a year later.

The original plan was completed months before the IOC unveiled new guidelines last summer to lower the cost of both bidding for and hosting an Olympic Games. The city’s director general for sport, Toshiya Ishikawa told ATR in February that the Sapporo bid team is currently "reconstructing our plan to reduce the costs in line" with the new bidding process.

A poll conducted a year ago showed 66.7 percent support for the bid, according to Ishikawa, who believes that hosting the Asian Winter Games in February 2017 helped in getting the local populace behind the project.

Written and reported by Gerard Farek

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