This is yet another twist that the French Alps 2030 organizing committee could have done without. While Edgar Grospiron and his team are still working on the map of sites, Méribel has decided to leave the ship. Thierry Monin, the mayor of Les Allues (the commune which includes Méribel), received Edgar Grospiron and his advisors on Thursday to discuss the station's place in the project. A meeting that did not please the elected official in light of the press release that was published immediately afterward.
« La Olympic Charter flouted, the commitments initially made during the candidacy, denied, the Paralympic participants discriminated against, important additional financial costs of several tens of millions of euros, a considerably increased environmental footprint, such are the consequences of the decisions envisaged by the COJOP. Under these conditions, Méribel does not endorse the COJOP position and wishes good luck to the athletes and the organizing sites ", we can read. The COJOP is leaning towards removing women's alpine skiing from Méribel, in favor of Val d'Isère, while leaving it with Paralympic events.
« The request made to the mayor of Les Allues to organize Paralympic events separate from the Alpine Olympic events is neither in accordance with the Olympic charter nor with the commitments made during the candidacy. Méribel takes note of these decisions of the COJOP and withdraws from the fray, keen to respect the commitments made as part of the candidacy and its Méribel 2038 environmental plan. (…) Alpes 2030 would be the first destination since 2002 to call into question the pooling of Olympic and Paralympic sites for skiing. A real aberration, both logistical, financial, environmental and symbolic. "The COJOP declared for its part that " no final arbitration " had not been returned.
