The impossible no longer exists in the Olympic universe. The old rule of geographic alternation has been shattered for more than a decade. Anything can now happen in a Games campaign. The Japanese know this. And they're not afraid to say it.
Example: Sapporo 2026. On paper, the prospect of organizing the Winter Games for the third consecutive time on the Asian continent, after PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022, seems like a fantasy. A lost project, one might think. And yet.
Tsunekazu Takeda, the president of the Japanese Olympic committee, also a member of the IOC, assured this last weekend at theAFP: " Everything is ready ". In the mouth of the Asian leader, grandson of Emperor Meiji, the promise serves as a campaign slogan. The Japanese are ready. Their potential competitors – Sion, Calgary, Stockholm, Innsbruck – are still considering whether to enter the race or surveying public opinion.
Tsunekazu Takeda explains, the Games in Sapporo in 2026 could rely on the equipment built for the Winter Olympics in 1972. “ We don't need to build new sites“, he explains. Over time, the bobsleigh and luge tracks gave up the ghost, but the Japanese project retained the instructions of the IOC Agenda 2020. In the event of victory, Sapporo 2026 would relocate the two disciplines, plus skeleton, to the sites of the Nagano 1998 Games, a thousand kilometers away.
According to the president of the Japanese Olympic committee, Sapporo's candidacy presents all the guarantees. She would even be a model of the genre, tailored to perfection in the context of the moment. A reasonable budget – around $4 billion – quite easy to reduce if necessary. Strong political support, both locally and nationally. An enthusiastic population. A solid and relevant system, successfully tested during the Asian Winter Games in 2017. Not a single new construction to come out of the ground.
Only visible obstacle: a phenomenon of repetition a priori little desired by the IOC, after PyeongChang 2018, Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022. But Tsunekazu Takeda suggested it to theAFP: « If we wanted to host another Summer Games six years later, no one would agree, but the Winter Games are totally different"
The IOC envoys will very soon be able to judge on the basis of the relevance of the Japanese project. They will go to Sapporo before the start of the PyeongChang 2018 Games, to meet the bidders and discover the sites. An inspection visit planned in the new so-called “dialogue” phase with cities potentially interested in hosting the Games. Christophe Dubi at the head, the delegation from Lausanne will continue in Japan a tour already passing through Sion, Stockholm and Calgary.
By publicly mentioning a candidacy for the 2026 Winter Games for the first time last February, the Japanese presented themselves as an alternative solution. Candidates just in case, in short. Since then, their project has moved forward without a single misstep. Today, they say they are ready. They will not back down anymore.
