After Baku, Minsk. After Azerbaijan in 2015, Belarus in 2019. The leaders of the Association of European Olympic Committees (EOC) can breathe. Their most visible event, imagined and designed as a counterpart to the Asian or Pan American Games, will indeed see a second edition. Gathered last weekend in Minsk, they chose the Belarusian capital as the host city for the European Games in 2019. The worst has been avoided. But the future still remains very uncertain.
The facts, first. To host the event in less than three years, Minsk was the only candidate city. A default choice, therefore. A year earlier, it was said with insistence in the ranks of the EOC that the 2019 edition would be contested in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. A more Western and very attractive option. But the Dutch Olympic committee threw in the towel, putting forward financial arguments to explain its withdrawal. Turkey was considered for a moment as a possible plan B. But the Turks did not follow up. All eyes then turned to Russia, where a joint project between Sochi and Kazan held sway. But, once again, the project did not come to fruition.
Minsk won the decision without the slightest competition. Aleksander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president (photo above), himself came to defend the capital's candidacy. “We are not a great power, but we give an important place to sport,” praised the head of state. In a not very encouraging sign, no less than 8 national Olympic committees voted in favor of postponing the decision to grant Belarus the 2019 edition of the European Games. Among them, the Scandinavian clan. Morten Moelholm Hansen, Secretary General of the Danish Olympic Committee, told Associated Press his concern at having granted the event to Minsk without knowing the details of his project or the financial guarantees.
According to certain sources, the Belarusian Olympic Committee has already requested help from the EOC and the IOC in order to complete the budget for the event. The answers have not yet been received. The only certainty: the 2019 edition will not compete in resources, pomp and budget with the European Games in Baku in 2015. Azerbaijan had spent lavishly. Belarus could prove to be significantly more modest in its ambitions. In 2015, the European Games included more than 20 sports. There will be between 10 and 15 for the 2019 edition.
The questions now. In Baku, the event offered a rather disparate field, certain sports sending their best athletes (table tennis, judo, boxing, triathlon, etc.), while swimming was content with the participation of juniors and athletics of an international match between lower level nations. What will happen in 2019? Mystery. The European Athletics Association (AEA) has not yet settled the debate. Neither does FINA.
Aleksander Lukashenko clearly asked the EOC to ensure that the Games in Minsk distribute Olympic quotas in all disciplines of the program. But the continental organization is not yet able to provide the slightest certainty. The future seems even more unclear as some of the major Olympic sports, including athletics, swimming, gymnastics, cycling and rowing, have joined forces to organize a European Championship in 2018. common, planned for Berlin and Glasgow.
Anatoly Kotov, the secretary general of the Belarusian Olympic committee, told AP that his country was ready to “sacrifice” certain athletics disciplines in exchange for the presence in Minsk of a quality field in the first of the Olympic sports. Quality rather than quantity, therefore, at the risk of offering an event with variable geometry. The same option could be favored in swimming.
On the evening of its general assembly, the EOC nevertheless displayed relief and confidence. Janez Kocijančič, its interim president, assured in a press release that these two days of meetings had been “crucial” for the organization. “We agreed to help Patrick Hickey defend himself and return to Ireland, we designated Minsk as the host city of the 2019 European Games, and finally we adopted a new visual identity,” listed the Slovenian, also vice-president of the International Ski Federation (FIS). For the rest, the future will answer.
