The host city of the 2030 Winter Olympics or this year finalized Sapporo, Japan as a popular candidate

Source: Sports Weekly

According to the "Kyodo News Agency" news quoted sources said that the International Olympic Committee (ICO) is expected to lock the 2030 Winter Olympics candidate cities around the summer to winter this year, Sapporo City is regarded as a popular candidate, and strive to host the 2030 Winter Olympics. According to reports, IOC President Bach discussed with the Japanese government in December last year the selection of venues.

Sapporo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1972 and was the first city in Asia to host the Winter Olympics. The report pointed out that whether it can get the support of local residents at this stage will become a key point in the bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics. On November 29 last year, the Sapporo City Government announced a plan to revise the outline plan for the Winter Olympics, which aims to reduce the cost of the event by 90 billion yen to 280 billion to 300 billion yen (about 15.72 billion to 16.84 billion yuan).

Allegedly, there are also ICO suggestions behind the cost reduction. In view of the cooling enthusiasm for the Olympic bid, the 2019 ICO significantly revised the mechanism for selecting the host place, and revoked the regulations on the location of the venue that was finalized in principle 7 years ago. Under the new reforms, the newly established "Olympic Venues Committee" will engage in dialogue with potential host cities to secure candidate cities.

Regarding the selection process for the 2032 Summer Olympics, the IOC made Brisbane, Australia, a top priority candidate at its Executive Committee meeting in February 2021, when the candidate cities were actually finalized. The decision was made at the IOC plenary session before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics in July, and Sapporo's bid to host 2030 is expected to be the same process.

It is reported that in addition to Sapporo, Salt Lake City in the United States is also interested in hosting the 2030 Winter Olympics, and in December last year, it began consultations with the IOC. In addition, Vancouver, Canada, has also begun to consider trying to host the Winter Olympics in 2030, and Barcelona, Spain and Ukraine are also interested in hosting the Winter Olympics, but did not specify the specific year.