On Oct. 18, the Swiss Olympic Committee released a feasibility study to introduce a country-wide proposal to host two consecutive Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. The study follows by about a week an announcement by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as we’ve just reported, that even fewer cities have the proper weather to host the winter games and that the customary selection of hosts is going to have to change.
Switzerland has made one of the IOC’s solutions, the games’ decentralization, a “sine qua non” of its forthcoming proposal, as it would enable the use of the “modern sports facilities,” public transport and accommodations (for the Olympic villages) that already exist on the national territory. In other words, with the games spread out over the country, no one city would have to bear the burden alone, and every city could focus on its specialty. Decentralization would also make security simpler to ensure, according to the study.
The committee believes a budget of 1.5 billion Swiss francs (€1.6bn) is sufficient to cover the organizational expense. Some CHF 710 million (€751m) would come from the IOC, and the balance mostly from private funds – with little if any cost to the taxpayer.
The municipalities and cantons concerned have already agreed in principle to hosting the games, federal parliamentarians have added their informal agreement, and apparently, the IOC has “itself approved the idea of a decentralized organization of ‘Switzerland 203X’” – where the X signals multiple Olympic years.
Most of the Swiss population (67%) would, for its part, appear to be on board, according to a survey conducted by gfs.bern.
The study is available online in French and German.
