Coincidence of the calendar or more lasting trend? After Japan, where Sapporo buried its Olympic ambitions deep within, Catalonia is in turn giving up on a possible candidacy for the Winter Games. The Spanish region is drawing a line under its projects. It could well be permanent.
Announced at the end of last week by several national media, the information was confirmed by the Catalan political authorities. Laura Vilagrà, Minister of the Presidency, explained that there were no longer plans for any working meeting with the Spanish Olympic Committee on the question of a bid for the Winter Games. She also clarified that the region’s budget for the year 2024 did not include the slightest expense linked to an Olympic and Paralympic project.
As a reminder, Spain had launched into the race for the Winter Games in 2030, proposing a project associating the Pyrenees and Barcelona. But the file was put in the basket by the national Olympic committee, after the failure of negotiations between Catalonia and Aragon on the sharing of competition sites.
A political affair, therefore. But, this time, Catalonia’s refusal to consider a candidacy for the Winter Games, even in the long term, seems motivated by more novel reasons. Anna Barnadas, the secretary of the Presidency in charge of climate issues, suggested this during an interview Catalunya Radio : the region will undoubtedly soon no longer be able to organize major winter sports competitions.
« The evidence of climate change is a reality that will become more and more delicateshe explained. Looking at the current images of ski resorts, it will be difficult to organize the Winter Olympics in latitudes like those of Catalonia. »
In terms of form, Catalonia’s refusal to consider a new Olympic project is not a scoop. Like Sapporo, the Spaniards would have been forced to work on a file for a deadline too far away – 2042 at the earliest – to fit with a political or economic agenda. The decision of the IOC Executive Board to secure three successive editions at once – the French Alps in 2030, Salt Lake City in 2034 and, barring a bad scenario, Switzerland in 2038 – pushes back the next shooting window to almost two decades . In other words, an eternity.
But the explanations put forward by the Catalan authorities also recall the forecast made by the IOC last year, when pushing back the date of awarding the 2030 Winter Games. “Fifteen national Olympic committees spread across three continents currently have at least 80% of the required facilities, assured Thomas Bach. But five of them will no longer have the necessary climate reliability by 2040.” Obviously, Spain has already ranked itself among those excluded from the race for the Winter Games.
