Estimated read time: 7-8 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City isn't the International Olympic Committee's only preferred host for an upcoming Winter Games. France's French Alps region is also in the final stages of the bid process for a Winter Games, putting together plans to host in 2030, four years sooner than Utah.
Like the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, France's bid team sent in the required submission by last month's deadline and is expected to be visited by the International Olympic Committee's Future Host Commission for an inspection of proposed Winter Games venues. The commission is scheduled to report to International Olympic Committee leaders on both bids in June, with a final decision coming in July.
But although the International Olympic Committee has set April 9-13 as the dates to see firsthand the Utah venues proposed for a 2034 Winter Games and held a virtual media briefing detailing the bid process, the Deseret News has confirmed the Switzerland-based organization has yet to finalize plans for anything similar for the French Alps.
That's raising some questions about France's late entry to host a Winter Games. There's clearly a lot of work ahead for the French bid, first discussed less than a year ago and officially in the race to host a Winter Games only since July 2023. Utah, the host of the 2002 Winter Games, has been bidding for more than a decade.
The sprawling French bid encompasses the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions, stretching from Chamonix in the north to Nice in the south. Chamonix hosted the 1924 Winter Games and Nice is a beachside city along the subtropical Côte d'Azur, also called the French Riviera.
Many unanswered questions in France
Details of France's bid submission to the International Olympic Committee reported recently by the French ski magazine Ski Chrono features "a map of sites yet to evolve," part of a 55-page file and 32 pages of annexes, according to a translation. When Gov. Spencer Cox and other officials sent off Utah's submission in February, the bid file was described as more than 30,000 words plus 343 pages of annexes.
"If I were to have a hunch on this, I'd say that they might be having problems because they don't have a good solid plan," Robert Livingstone, the Toronto-based producer of GamesBids.com, said, citing public opposition to the French bid as well as "some questions over using venues. Obviously, it's not as clean as what Salt Lake City has."
Unlike the Utah bid's "excellent plan that's been coming together for years and years and years, with a legacy from 2002, they're working with a hastily built plan. They don't have all the guarantees, all the assurances," he said, from government entities and others. "I think there's still a lot of things to work out there."
When Livingstone tried to press International Olympic Committee officials about when they planned to head to France to take a look at the proposed sites for the 2030 Winter Games, he said the answer he got was "kind of vague" and left him wondering why that trip hadn't already been put together given the timeline for the Future Host Commission's report.
"They have to have the recommendation by June and the election in July, so they need time. April seems the right time to visit France," Livingstone said. "So why haven't they said anything? I don't know. That's exactly why I asked the question. ... I really don't know what's going on with that."
'It's been so vague'
What he was told by Jacqueline Barrett, the International Olympic Committee's Future Olympic Games Hosts director, was that "the context of each project is different" but the Future Host Commission "is going to be doing the same kind of approach" to both bids, and "the sense of the visit and how we're going to be running it is going to be the same."
A few days later, a committee communications manager told the Deseret News that "the program for the French visit is not yet finalized," including "any IOC media roundtable on this topic."
Mark Conrad, professor of law and ethics and director of the sports business program at Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business in New York City, said he's surprised the French Alps bid plans aren't more specific at this point. Asked if France will be able to catch up after such a late start, Conrad said, "I don't know."
The professor said it's not clear what venues France will use, other than some mountain resorts, so "that's really the big question, what's their infrastructure and how much they'd have to build. Honestly, I've not studied that bid because it's been so vague."
The Winter Olympics are "very tricky," he said, and in the past, haven't attracted many serious bidders.
This time around, Salt Lake City bid to host in either 2030 or 2034, with a preference for the later date to avoid competing for sponsors with the 2028 Summer Games in another U.S. city, Los Angeles. Although Sapporo, Japan, and Vancouver, Canada, were in the running for 2030, their bids faltered due to a lack of public support.
The International Olympic Committee ended up delaying a decision on advancing Winter Games hosts until late last year, giving other places a chance to compete. Sweden and Switzerland soon stepped forward, and there was even talk of a European "super bid" from several countries before France jumped in the race.
'Work out the issues'
Besides advancing the French Alps and Salt Lake City to what's known as the targeted dialogue phase of bidding and naming them respectively as preferred hosts for 2030 and 2034, the International Olympic Committee also invited Switzerland to engage in a new, exclusive "privileged dialogue" to host in 2038.
Although Salt Lake City has been seen as a backup for the International Olympic Committee should France's 2030 bid fall through, neither Livingstone nor Conrad see that happening.
French bidders, Livingstone said, "either work out the issues, they get a plan together, get it approved. The (IOC) members vote and say yes or they don't. If they don't have it ready, (the IOC says) OK, we're not going to elect them in July, we're going to study it further or choose another city or whatever. Obviously, they've got Switzerland."
Backers of Switzerland's national bid are continuing to put together plans for hosting a Winter Games, he said.
"They're not just sitting around. They're doing work. So who knows, maybe they're on the back burner just in case," Livingstone said, adding that at this point, the IOC wouldn't turn to Salt Lake City and "say, 'Hey, we need you for 2030 now, change gears. Maybe this is why the IOC put Switzerland into hold mode there. Maybe they thought ... we'll use Switzerland as our backup plan."
'Hey, do it four years earlier'
Conrad, who said he thought Switzerland's bid would be "the one" for 2030, believes the International Olympic Committee would want those Winter Games to stay in Europe. Since the 2006 Winter Games in Tornio, Italy, the every-four-year event has been held in Canada, Russia, South Korea and China, although the 2026 Winter Games will be headed to Italy again, to Milan and Cortina.
With Salt Lake City slotted for 2034, "It really would be a lot to say, 'Hey, do it four years earlier.' I think they would probably look to a prior place or to maybe one of the other bidders. Plus, we have the whole issue of LA," the professor said. Moving Salt Lake City to 2030 also puts the location of two Winter Games "up in the air because they're not going to have consecutive Olympics."
Both Utah and French officials have expressed confidence that scenario will never take place.
In January, Renaud Muselier, president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Region, declared France "will be ready" to host the 2030 Winter Games after touring the Utah Olympic Park near Park City as a member of a French trade delegation to the state. "We have snow, we have ski resorts, we have skiers. We know how to do (it), in fact."
Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of Utah's bid committee, said recently that after meeting Muselier, "what became very clear to me is these folks are really dialed in. They are focused. They have the support they need. Yes, they got a later start, but boy are they moving fast. So we are highly confident they will put together not only a great bid but host fantastic Games."
