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PARIS — The simultaneous awarding of the 2030 and 2034 Winter Olympics last month provides stability for the Olympic movement and a similar decision cannot be ruled out for future Games, the International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday.
France's Alpine bid was picked for the 2030 Games while Salt Lake City, who hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics, was chosen for 2034.
It was only the second time ever the committee decided on two hosts at the same time, after selecting Paris and Los Angeles for the 2024 and 2028 Summer Games back in 2017.
In an interview with Reuters, Jacqueline Barrett, the International Olympic Committee's future Olympic Games hosts director, said having the choice of two strong proposals was what led to that decision.
"We did not set out to do a double award," Barrett said. "If special circumstances arise to be able to seize opportunities ... here we found ourselves in a situation with two great projects. And we thought we don't want to let these projects go.
"It provides security for the future, for the athletes principally, the Olympic movement, the partners," she added.
The International Olympic Committee has now picked all Summer and Winter Games hosts until 2034, with Italy's Milano-Cortina hosting the 2026 Winter edition and Brisbane staging the 2032 Summer Games.
The committee reformed the bidding process in recent years and instead of candidates openly competing for two years before a vote, there is now a closed-door dialogue with interested parties before a preferred candidate is picked and then put to the vote to the International Olympic Committee membership.
This has led to a sharply reduced cost for bidding, which in the past could go up to as much as $100 million and involved considerable planning and consultancy fees, scaring off a number of candidates.
In the case of 2030 and 2034 Games the International Olympic Committee secured two more editions of the Olympics with climate change severely impacting the pool of potential winter candidates.
Following a report by the future hosts commission last year that identified the dangers to the winter editions due to a global rise in temperatures, the committee is now considering various options in the way it will chose future hosts.
These include a potential rotation among winter sports hubs or the sharing of the Winter Games among countries, using existing venues.
"We are looking at grouping, sharing or looking at rotation. We are not limiting ourselves to one position," she said.
Barrett said the committee would also not rule out another double award for 2036 and 2040 should that opportunity present itself.
Istanbul, India, Indonesia and Chile's Santiago are among those to have officially thrown their hats in the ring for 2036.
More candidacies could come from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Germany and South Korea, with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach saying the number of interested cities for 2036 was now in the double digits.
"It will very much depend on what the individual projects are," Barrett said of a potential double award. "I think the IOC would not close the door to it but it is not an automatic response either."
