IOC Approves 3 Candidate Bids for 2026 Winter Olympics

Date: 10 October 2018 - 21:28

News ID: ۵۸۳۴۶

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Dispatches) - The International Olympic Committee has three official candidates to host the 2026 Winter Games and a new timetable to pick the winner.
Now the Olympic body needs to overcome "bad faith" - of local people and activists who believe staging the games is too expensive - to ensure all three candidates stay on the ballot next June, IOC members were told.
"We have to make a huge effort in explaining ourselves better," IOC vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. said Tuesday. "It is not getting across with sufficient strength."
The 2026 Olympics contest is between Calgary, Canada; Stockholm, Sweden; and the combined Italian bid of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo after IOC members formally backed the bids recommended last week by their executive board.
A fourth contender, Erzurum in Turkey, was dropped by the board last week amid concern about high spending on essential projects.
Calgary, which also hosted in 1988, could yet drop out after a Nov 13 referendum. Full support of federal and local governments is also not guaranteed in Sweden or Italy.
These are the latest public tests of trust in Olympic hosting since Russia spent US$51 billion to prepare for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
Voters in Switzerland and Austria already toppled potential 2026 bids. Recent Olympic hosting contests saw bids fail due to public opposition or government doubts in Scandinavia, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland.
*******International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach gives a press conference at the end of the 133rd IOC session in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Oct 9, 2018.