A clarification for the candidacy of Barcelona and the Pyrenees for the 2030 Winter Games? Thomas Bach, IOC President, will travel to Spain on June 1. He must stop in Madrid, the capital. Officially, his visit is in no way linked to the Olympic project of Catalonia and the Pyrenees. The German leader is due to visit a refugee center located in Getafe, near Madrid, where the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) aims to receive around 200 refugees among the tens of thousands taken in by Spain. But the presence of Thomas Bach could prove decisive for the Spanish candidacy for the Winter Games in 2030. Alejandro Blanco, the president of the COE, explained this to the agency Efe : " On June 1, IOC President Thomas Bach will come to Madrid. If we still have an application, we will need to know at least ten days before their visit in order to present them with something concrete that day. Much or little, but we have to show him something“. For Alejandro Blanco, the Spanish Olympic project must therefore still be alive by May 20 at the latest, and have resolved all or part of the differences between Catalonia and Aragon over the distribution of competition sites. Otherwise, the candidacy for the Winter Games will indeed be buried. “ An agreement must be signed by the two regional presidents and the Spanish government, insisted Alejandro Blanco. If not, we'll give up and start thinking about something else, in 2034 or whenever. » As a reminder, in recent weeks a delegation of IOC experts began a technical tour of the candidate cities, Salt Lake City, Sapporo and Vancouver. She was due to stop in Spain during the month of May, but her visit was canceled as the leaders of the Spanish project did not yet consider themselves ready to receive the IOC envoys.
