A case folded? According to the Japanese agency Kyodo News, the odds of Sapporo in the race for the 2030 Winter Games would be in free fall at the IOC. The Olympic body would have even turned its eyes to other candidates, including Sweden and Switzerland. Citing anonymous sources but “close to the case”, Kyodo News explains that the IOC would be very concerned by the mistrust of the Japanese opinion towards the Olympic project, largely consecutive to the corruption scandal related to the Tokyo Games. Clearly, the Japanese do not want the Winter Games at home, as illustrated recently by the result of the municipal election in Sapporo, where the two anti-Olympic candidates have achieved a significant score. And the IOC does not want to award the event to a city where the support of the population is not there. According to one of the sources of Kyoto News, the IOC believes that Sapporo and the Japanese must first solve their problems before considering receiving the Games. A reversal of tendency which accredits the thesis of a postponement of the candidature of the prefecture of Hokkaido to the edition 2034, evoked last week by the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC), the former judoka Yasuhiro Yamashita.
