New meeting to try to save 2030 Olympics bid

BarcelonaThe Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) continues to gain time to save the bid to take the Winter Olympic Games to the Pyrenees in 2030. This Thursday, the Aragonese Minister of Education, Culture and Sport, Felipe Faci, took a new proposal for the distribution of venues to the COE headquarters in Madrid. It is an alternative to the technical document that the COE itself signed a week ago, considering it valid, alongside members of the central government and the Generalitat de Catalunya.

The COE admitted that this proposal "modifies in some aspects the one presented, discussed and agreed on by the technical commission in which they participated". This commission, with three representatives from the central government, three from Catalonia, three from Aragon and three from the COE itself, closed a proposal in mid-March to distribute venues that everyone considered valid. Once it was leaked to the press, however, the president of Aragon, Javier Lambán, took it back, stating that he rejected it because it gave more important sporting events to Catalonia. The day he was expected in Madrid to put an end to months and months of negotiations, Lambán stayed in Zaragoza.

"The COE will convene in the coming days a meeting to find the final solution for the bid submitted to the International Olympic Committee and with the support of the Spanish government to hold the 2030 Winter Olympic Games in Catalonia and Aragon" the COE wrote yesterday. The Generalitat de Catalunya will attend to show its goodwill, but it does not intend to make any changes to the agreement, since it was signed in the presence of COE representatives. The Aragonese proposal os for all the valleys in the Aragonese Pyrenees to have "protagonism" in the candidacy. To do so, it proposes to divide alpine skiing and cross-country skiing between Catalonia and Aragon. In the proposal signed by the COE, on the other hand, all alpine skiing is in Catalonia and all cross-country skiing in Aragon. The Aragonese proposal is that Catalonia should have freestyle and ski mountaineering, while Aragon would have snowboarding and biathlon. As for ice-related disciplines, Aragon would host the curling, figure skating and short track speed skating events, while long track and ice hockey would be held in Catalonia. Faci gave as an example the next Winter Games in 2026, in Milan - Cortina d'Ampezzo, where the men's and women's skiing events will have different venues, a model that could be replicated in 2030 between Aragon and Catalonia.