The name of the president of the Organizing Committee for the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games was expected today, Monday, February 3. We will have to wait another two weeks. The French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) has set the date for February 18. The Constituent General Assembly of the COJOP will then definitively lay the foundations for these Games. With or without Martin Fourcade? The doubt remains.
Michel Barnier, the architect
The six-time Olympic biathlon champion is running for the post of COJOP president. He has also received a number of endorsements, even recently from the Alpes-Maritimes Olympic and Sports Committee. According to The Dauphine, the Catalan would however have taken the unexpected decision to give up due to the "divergences raised by his candidacy". His withdrawal would thus leave room for a duel between Vincent Jay and Marie Martinod. Should we therefore rule him out of the race for good? No one will answer in the affirmative. Former Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who continues to prepare the ground, met with Sports Minister Marie Barsacq on Wednesday, January 29.
He would activate "to bring the former biathlete back into the game", and with two weeks to go, a lot can still change. Fourcade appears on paper as the perfect figurehead for the project with an exceptional sporting career, his experience at the head of the Paris 2024 athletes' commission and a reputation that goes beyond sport. He was also voted the French people's favourite sportsman, ahead of Kylian Mbappé, in an Odoxa poll in 2020. Everything it would take to embody the project and generate support.
The time for arbitration
The uncertainty will be lifted on February 18, in Lyon, and more precisely at the Groupama Stadium according to the local press. A choice that would be consistent with that of installing the COJOP headquarters in the same area, very close to Lyon-Saint Exupéry airport. Although the deadline has been pushed back again, the CNOSF wants to reassure. "The preparatory work of the committee is taking shape with the preparation of the steering of the organizing committee as well as the first recruitments, explains the entity in a press release. The call for applications for the recruitment of the general manager of the future committee is currently being published to ensure the constitution of the management team in the coming weeks. The process of technical and budgetary consolidation of the project has also been initiated.
At the same time, the support mission "prepares the decisions that will be taken by the government and stakeholders on the COJOP budget, the SOLIDEO model and infrastructure projects, by the end of the first quarter of 2025, in a requirement for efficiency and sobriety which is the foundation of the project". Despite the delay in getting started and the pressure of the schedule, the CNOSF thus ensures that "the promise of popular Games, respectful of the mountains and exciting for our athletes will be kept". To get there, there is no more time to lose.
