Sapporo Set to Pull Plug on 2026 Olympic Bid

(ATR) Japanese sports leaders are expected to tell the IOC president next week that Sapporo is withdrawing from the 2026 race to focus on the 2030 Olympics.

"JOC president Tsunekazu Takeda and Sapporo deputy mayor Takatoshi Machida will meet IOC president Thomas Bach on Monday 17th in Lausanne," the Japanese Olympic Committee tells Around the Rings. They declined to comment when asked if Sapporo would formally withdraw its 2026 bid.

The Japanese officials, who have been mulling withdrawal from the 2026 bid race for several months, will likely inform Bach that now is the right time to quit. A report by Japanese news agency Kyodo says Sapporo will drop its Olympic quest.

A 6.6-magnitude earthquake that last week rocked the northern island of Hokkaido, killing 41 people, has refocused government priorities on the northern Japanese island where Sapporo is the largest city.

Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi told ATR on Thursday that he wasn’t yet aware of Sapporo’s withdrawal from the race. "I have also read in the news but we have not been informed by Sapporo," he said.

But Sapporo’s official withdrawal on Monday would come as no major surprise.

City leaders have been on the verge of quietly withdrawing from the 2026 race for some months.

With efforts ramping up to prepare for the Rugby World Cup in Japan next year and the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, Sapporo’s expression of interest in the 2026 Games has lacked serious commitment ever since it was announced as one of seven bidders by the IOC in April.

Sports leaders and government officials from the 1972 Winter Olympic host city always favored a tilt at the 2030 Games. But they participated and benefited from the dialogue phase of the IOC’s revamped bidding process for the 2026 Olympics. In so doing, they have raised the city’s profile and kept in the good graces of Olympic officials in Lausanne.

Sapporo’s director general for sport Toshiya Ishikawa admitted to ATR in February that convincing the IOC to award the Winter Olympics to a third straight Asian city, after PyeongChang and Beijing in 2022, would be a tough sell.

Sapporo was edging towards quitting the 2026 Olympic race in October at the end of the dialogue stage of the bidding contest.

In Buenos Aires next month, the IOC Executive Board selects the cities to move forward to the year-long candidature phase. The fallout from the deadly earthquake has brought forward Sapporo’s decision.

Sapporo’s exit is another blow for the IOC. Olympic committee chiefs considered it a safe bet to host another Winter Games in 2026, if the four other bids from Calgary, Stockholm, Erzurum in Turkey and a joint Italian effort were derailed in the coming months.

Now the IOC’s security blanket has been swept away, with question marks surrounding three of the four remaining bids. A Nov. 13 plebiscite on the 2026 Olympics in Calgary could yet knock out the Canadian bid, while Stockholm’s Olympic push is dependent on winning the support of the new Swedish government coalition. Italy’s combined three-city bid could yet crumble due to infighting among Cortina d"Ampezzo, Milan and Turin.

The IOC Session in Milan, Italy will vote on the host city in September 2019.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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