Winter Olympics Back to Europe

The IOC has announced several changes to the Olympic bid process.  First, they're giving the Executive Board a lot more latitude for making recommendations of areas/cities/countries that could/should be potential hosts.  They're also adjusting the bid timeline.  It won't necessarily be the standard seven years (there's already precedent for this after LA was awarded the 2028 Games 11 years in advance). 

And, perhaps most importantly, they're tired of Olympic bids being shot down by referendums.  It's embarrassing for the cities, and it's embarrassing for the IOC.  So, they're telling cities to have their referendums ahead of time.  Don't waste all that time and money on a bid that the people don't want.  Get the support first, then move ahead with your bid instead of the other way around.  A lot of what the IOC has done in recent years regarding the bid process is pretty dumb (which is what has led to their current predicament), but changing that requirement was very smart.

One last change that they've made, and this one applies particularly to the Winter Olympics, is that bids are no longer required to be based in one host "city."  If it means making use of existing facilities, regional and even multi-national bids will be considered.  This is the case for both finalists for the 2026 Winter Games, which will mark the Winter Olympics' long-awaited return to a traditional European location after two straight trips to East Asia.

This could also be the last Olympic bid of its kind, as the IOC's reforms will have taken effect by the time the bid process for 2030 (the next Olympics to be awarded) begins.  And, hopefully that means this'll be the final Olympic bid race that was reduced to a head to head.

But at least we've got a race, and both contenders are viable options.  It took a little while to get the required government guarantees, and for a time it looked like we might be down to zero bid cities on announcement day.  But the local and national governments eventually signed on, and it looks like the people are excited, too. 

So, even though it's just a two-horse race, the IOC got exactly what it wanted.  Either way, we'll have a Winter Olympics in a traditional European winter sports nation.  Either Sweden will host the Winter Games for the first time (which is so ridiculously hard to believe) or the Winter Olympics will return to Italy for the second time in 20 years.

Let's start with Stockholm Are.  You've gotta love the Swedes' perseverance.  They had no support from the government, but went ahead with the bid anyway and eventually got that backing.  Which has Stockholm, the 1912 Summer host, in position to join Beijing as the second straight city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games.  The mountain city of Are was always a part of the bid, and had its name officially added alongside Stockholm's shortly after hosting the alpine skiing World Championships in January.

Events will be spread out between an area of nearly 750 miles between Are and Sigulda, Latvia, which would host the sliding events.  There's no bobsled track in Sweden, so the IOC has signed off on having the sliding events across the Baltic Sea in Sigulda, making this the first Olympics to hold medal events in two nations (not counting the 1956 equestrian events, which, conicidentally, were in Stockholm while the rest of the Olympics were in Melbourne).

While it may seem like the venues are spread very far apart, in reality this is a Stockholm-centered bid.  The only events outside of Stockholm will be at existing facilities in Are (alpine skiing, snowboarding/freestyle skiing), Falun (ski jumping, Nordic combined) and Sigulda (bobsled, luge, skeleton).  Everything else will be in the capital, which would also include the use of the 1912 Olympic Stadium for big air snowboarding.

Italy's bid originally included three cities, but 2006 host Torino backed out, leaving Milan and Cortina to go it alone, with a whole bunch of local areas in between.  It's only 255 miles between the cities, but there isn't one centralized location, so it feels much more spread out than the Swedish bid.

If I had to choose a "main" host, it would probably be Cortina, which hosted the 1956 Winter Games and would be utilizing a lot of the same venues again 70 years later.  That includes reopening the bobsled track that has been closed since 2008 (they originally suggested using a track in Switzerland even though Cortina already has one and just needs to renovate it). 

Milan would only host the Opening and Closing Ceremonies (at San Siro, the beautiful home stadium of both AC and Inter Milan), figure skating, short track and hockey.  That's it.  Everything else would be scattered among alpine resort towns west of Cortina, all of which currently host World Cup and World Championship events in the various winter sports.

They were originally going to announce the host city in Milan in September, but the vote was moved up to June at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland because IOC rules prohibit a vote taking place in a country that's bidding for the Games in question.  The fact that the decision's being made a few months earlier shouldn't make that much of a difference, though.  Because the voters definitely seem to be leaning one way.

While Milan Cortina rated slightly higher in the IOC Evaluation Commission's report, they also gave Stockholm Are a favorable review.  What's more, Sweden's passion for winter sports is so well known that it's inconceivable they've never hosted the Winter Games.  It's time to rectify that.  Sweden has bid and failed for the Winter Olympics so many times before.  Not this time.  The 2026 Winter Olympics will take place in Stockholm and Are, Sweden.