Winter Olympic News On Olympic Day

Happy Olympic Day everybody!  Today is the 129th anniversary of the Olympic Games officially being revived and the formation of the International Olympic Committee.  Two years later, the first Modern Olympics took place in Athens, and next year's edition, of course, will be in Paris, birthplace of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympic movement.

While the dates didn't exactly correspond with Olympic Day, the latest IOC Session just concluded.  And it was a busy one!  Especially when you consider this isn't an Olympic year, they sure covered a lot.  Most of which have to do with the Winter Games.

Perhaps the biggest change was standardizing the distances in cross country skiing.  There are six cross country events per gender on the Olympic program.  Only the sprint and team sprint covered the same distance.  In all the others, the men's event was longer.  Not anymore.  Starting in 2026, the distances will be the same for both men and women.  Which means the women will also have a 50 km race and both relays will be a 4x10 km.

FIS already made these changes on the World Cup circuit last season, so doing the same thing at the Olympics makes complete sense.  And, frankly, it's long overdue.  Especially having the women ski the 50 km, which is the Winter Games' version of the marathon.  (Ironically, in Beijing, the men's race was shortened to just over 30 km, or slightly longer than the women's distance, because of extreme temperatures.)

It's not just cross country skiing that will see significant changes in Milan Cortina.  In alpine skiing, they've changed the combined from an individual event to a team event.  Previously, it was the same skier completing a run of downhill and a run of slalom.  I actually loved the individual alpine combined since it determined the best all-around skier.  I'm actually excited by the change, though.  Because I think it could make for a really exciting event.

Most alpine skiers either specialize in the speed events (downhill, Super G) or the technical events (slalom, giant slalom).  So, the skiers in the combined would naturally try to excel in their specialty and do good enough in the other to medal.  Now that it's a team event, though, countries will use a speed skier in the downhill portion and a technical skier in the slalom portion.  Instead of one skier trying to do both disciplines, it'll be two skiers, one who specializes in each.  It's essentially become a relay, which I love.

The individual combined has been in the Olympics since 1988, but this year will be the fourth straight season it won't be held on the World Cup circuit.  The new team combined, meanwhile, will be contested in Austria in January.  They haven't said if the individual combined will remain on the World Championships program, but it looks like they've pivoted to making the combined a team event moving forward.

Speaking of team events, there have also been changes to those in Nordic combined and men's ski jumping.  Instead of four-man teams, it'll only be two members per squad.  And, since the skiing portion of the Nordic combined team event is a relay, that'll go from a 4x5 km to a 2x7.5 km (where they'll trade off 1.5 km intervals).  This is being done because of the reduction in quota places for both sports.  (Ski jumping will have fewer men and more women, but the same number of athletes.)

There was also some encouraging news about future Winter Olympics.  Under the old bidding rules, the 2030 host likely would've been chosen at this IOC Session.  The new bid process doesn't have a set timeline, though, which worked out for 2030, since a lack of interested candidates really put the IOC in a bind and resulted in the announcement of a host city having to be delayed.  Now it looks like the 2030 host will be announced next year in Paris right before the Olympics begin.

After Sapporo backed out and Salt Lake City stated its preference for 2034, Sweden stepped in with a bid very similar to their 2026 bid centered around Stockholm.  A majority of Swedes back the bid, and they've entered into the next step of the bid process, the "dialogue phase."  It's still a safe bet that Sweden will host in 2030, but we've since learned that Switzerland has expressed an interest, as well.

Sweden and Switzerland are two of at least six countries that have publicly indicated they'd be interested in hosting a future Winter Olympics.  You'd have to figure the United States, Canada and Japan are three of the other four.  My guess is that the fourth is also in Europe (Austria or Norway maybe?).  But I'd also be willing to bet other countries will also emerge.

That's why I'm not enamored with the idea that's been floating around of several "permanent" Winter Olympic sites that alternate hosting duties.  Global warming and the general lack of interested parties and/or available facilities are usually cited as the reasons why they're considering this.  But, especially now that they have the dialogue phase with potential hosts, that seems unnecessary.  Especially since it would place the burden on the same places while not opening up the Olympics to other areas.

Almaty, Kazakhstan, for example, put together a very good bid for last year's Winter Games that ultimately went to Beijing.  Kazakhstan has never hosted an Olympics.  Neither has Central Asia, for that matter.  Almaty seems like the perfect place to kill two birds with one stone.  And the IOC won't know how suited the city is to host unless they go there and see for themselves.  Likewise, there are other potential first-time hosts that probably wouldn't even be considered if they went to a semi-permanent rotation.

We also know that there should be plenty of interest in both the 2034 and 2038 Winter Games (and likely 2042, as well).  Sapporo was the odds-on favorite to host in 2030 until the bid collapsed (for a number of reasons).  Salt Lake City wanted to wait until 2034 because of LA 2028.  Even if it's just those two in the running, only one can host.  The other can wait until 2038, which would push any potential bidders for that year into 2042, etc.  Especially since the entire point of the dialogue phase is to match prospective hosts with the next available Games that makes sense for both parties.

I'm opposed to the idea of permanent rotating hosts for a few reasons, but those are the main ones.  Rotating hosts may seem ideal from a logistical standpoint, but I think the negatives far outweigh the positives.  It would also take some of the appeal away.  The whole point is to go all over the world.  Going the same places over and over again would get boring for everybody (athletes, broadcasters and fans alike).  Not to mention the fact that it would likely become rather burdensome on those handful of host cities and countries (it would also be unfair to other areas in those same countries that might be interested in hosting somewhere down the line).

They also made a decision on boxing, keeping the sport and affirming its place in LA but ditching the federation.  No decision yet on Russia and Belarus, explaining that there's still enough time before one has to be made regarding the Paris Games.  Those Paris Games will be here before we know it, though.  Because the next Olympic Day will be less than a month before the start of the next Olympics.