Sapporo, Japan backers are taking a pause in the bidding.
It appears that the 2030 Winter Olympics will be held in Salt Lake City and in Utah. In fact, the only way Salt Lake City will not be awarded the 2030 event is if Salt Lake City has a disastrous bid and even then, it is unlikely that the International Olympic Committee will say no. Salt Lake City is the only one left standing in the race to capture the event. The backers of the Vancouver, British Columbia bid were stunned when local elected officials told them there are better things to do with public money than throw money at the International Olympic Committee’s two-week sports gala in 2030. The IOC received a huge jolt when the Japanese Olympic Committee and the City of Sapporo decided to pause their efforts in the bidding for the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games because of “damage done” by the Tokyo 2020 bribery scandal.
It is back to the drawing board for the Sapporo committee, the city’s mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto explained. Sapporo is merely stopping the clock for the time being but it is not abandoning the bid although time is running out as sometime in the next year the IOC plans to award the event to someone. With Sapporo’s bid on ice for the foreseeable future and no one else seeking the games in 2030 or 2034, Salt Lake City is the clear frontrunner but the United States Olympic Committee may find that marketing partners want a pause too from investing in the Olympics. Los Angeles has the 2028 Summer Olympics and marketing budgets may be stretched a bit thin in the United States. The IOC decided to hold back on awarding the 2030 event until 2024 because of climate change concerns although the real reason may stem from a lack of suitable bidders.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
