IOC’s ‘New Norm’ dominates 2026 Games presentations
Bach heaps praise on ‘well prepared’ Tokyo for 2020 Games
TOKYO: Stockholm and an Italian two-city bid made presentations to host the 2026 Winter Games yesterday with both embracing the IOC’s ‘The New Norm’ programme which is aimed at making it cheaper and easier to stage the Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) faces its most serious bidding crisis in decades after several cities dropped out of the 2026 race, leaving just two candidates. The IOC has called The New Norm “an ambitious set of 118 reforms that reimagines how the Olympic Games are delivered”.
On the first day of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) General Assembly, the Italian bid of Milan-Cortina D’Ampezzo said 93 percent of its venues would be temporary or already exist.
“We are interpreting the new rules to put together a big city like Milan and then the mountains, avoiding throwing away money and making a very sustainable offer,” Milan mayor Guiseppe Sala told Reuters after the presentation.
Luca Zaia, president of the Veneto region, said there would be no “white elephants”, whilst the Italians claimed 83 percent of Milan’s citizens favoured the bid. Italian Olympic Committee President Giovanni Malago said giving a winter Olympics to countries such as Sweden or Italy, with their rich history of winter sports and pre-existing venues, was the future of Olympic bidding under The New Norm.
Stockholm’s bid also played on themes of sustainability. “I think The New Norm and the new terms of organising Olympic Games definitely fits into our way of thinking,” Swedish Olympic Committee chief Mats Arjes said after the presentation.
The Italian bid is far from guaranteed enough political support amid the country’s financial woes, while Stockholm faces opposition from a new city government which said last month it would not back a bid that includes taxpayer funding. The IOC will elect the winners in June, 2019.
Meanwhile, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach says he cannot remember a host city being as well prepared as Tokyo, a little more than 600 days before the start of the 2020 Summer Games.
The German visited the offices of Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic organisers yesterday, lavishing praise on the hosts for their readiness to host the summer showpiece. “We see already now, two years before these Olympic Games, all the ingredients for successful Olympics Games are in place,” said Bach, who is in Tokyo to attend an IOC Executive Board meeting that begins on Friday.
“We’re really very impressed about progress in the preparations that we have been experiencing here. “I cannot remember any Olympic city being so well and so much advanced two years before the Games as Tokyo 2020 is.”
Bach’s words are sure to warm the hearts of Games organisers, who have overcome a swathe of initial fears to get preparations on track ahead of the competition, which begins on July 24, 2020.
In 2015, Tokyo 2020 scrapped their initial Games logo due to allegations of plagiarism and the original design for a new Olympic stadium was also changed due to overwhelming costs. However, since budget cuts of $300 million were announced in December 2017, Tokyo 2020 organisers have had a relatively pain-free ride. One area where questions remain is over Tokyo’s ability to host a Summer Games in scorching temperatures, which reached a record 41.1 degrees Celsius in July this year. With average summer temperatures in the Japanese capital higher than 30 degrees Celsius since 1998, according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, organisers have been searching for counter-measures.
Few hard policies have actually been announced and there remains uncertainty over start times for the men’s and women’s marathons but Bach was not concerned. “The measures are being prepared and there is a closer cooperation with the organising committee,” he added. “We had a special working group with medical people, with medical scholars. They are proposing some measures.”
Bach is due to give a speech on the second day of the Association of National Committees General Assembly today. — Reuters