sebastien1214

I have the impression that we will still tend towards a return to the "old procedure" (i.e., the election), but with a pre-selection phase, keeping this "targeted dialogue" thing so as not to offend Bach's nostalgics too much, and not to show too obviously that we are tearing up one of his major legacies so quickly.

I saw that @baron-pierreIV talked about the additional sports for LA 2028; regarding 2030, we just learned that we will find out next June: https://www.lequipe.fr/Tous-sports/Actualites/Rendez-vous-en-juin-2026-pour-connaitre-les-sports-additionnels-aux-jo-2030/1616029 Also today, Edgar Grospiron and Cyril Linette (the "Directeur général", essentially the no2 right after Edgar Grospiron) were heared by the National Assembly. This hearing was part of the Assembly's review of the law concerning the 2030 Olympic Games (remember, I mentioned this a few posts ago). Nothing significantly new was revealed, except for the very diplomatic confirmation of Anne Murac's departure ("Unfortunately, she didn't feel very comfortable with this project for her own reasons"). The only real information to emerge is that the list of selected venues is now expected in June 2026. The real problem, at least right now (and there are likely to be many more until 2030 given the situation...), is related to Val d'Isère. In the initial bid, Val d'Isère was excluded, under pressure from the IOC, because it would have created a third "cluster" for the ski events, the IOC only wanting a maximum of two. But there is intensive lobbying from elected officials in the region, as well as from a certain Jean-Claude Killy, who has many political connections, to reinstate Val d'Isère. However, this is creating a lot of tension; Edgar Grospiron is rather in favor (out of conviction, or just to avoid upsetting the politicians? In my opinion, the answer is in the question), but Cyril Linette is not really. Here's a quick summary of the articles published in the last 24 hours (to my great surprise, Anne Murac's resignation received far more press coverage than I expected), but basically, tensions are also running very high around Cyril Linette, to the point that there's a good chance he too will end up "cracking" and resigning. I'll conclude with an anecdote to give you a sense of the atmosphere: https://www.leparisien.fr/sports/JO/il-y-a-ceux-qui-ne-voient-pas-les-problemes-et-ceux-qui-ne-veulent-pas-les-voir-crise-au-sommet-des-alpes-2030-09-12-2025-VBGFGHPDZNFXPHV74KJA4AV4WA.php It's easier to understand why Martin Fourcade didn't want to get involved in this mess (and why the politicians didn't want him either).

Well, I guess almost any European capital can very well claim to be number 1 in many things given the amount of bullshit that comes out (like for example the top #1 destination in the world, for TripAdvisor it's London, for Euromonitor International it's Paris, I guess for nightlife you can find plenty of rankings that put Berlin in first place, etc etc), but I find it funny to use as a source something called "Secret London", Khan could have been a little more subtle !

He dares to say a lot of funny things, but you will have noticed that he did not dare to claim 1st place in terms of food!

I have no doubt that the Games will take place as planned, but my fear is that some things will be rushed, and that political interference will waste a lot of time (we see this for example with this story of the final list of sites which is very likely to be postponed, because there are also big political issues); except that by wanting to waste too much time when you don't have much to begin with (thanks to the IOC...), you end up with the risk of overpaying for certain things in order to accelerate certain essential buildings/infrastructures so that they are finished on time, and for a constrained budget (around €2.1 billion for the OCOG and €1.4 billion for Solideo at this moment), the risk of going over budget is even more real.

https://www.leparisien.fr/sports/JO/jo-alpes-2030-crise-ouverte-dans-les-alpes-avec-la-demission-de-la-directrice-des-operations-09-12-2025-URFAN6HOQBF3HJ4WELVQCJIX5U.php One of the key members of the OCOG, Anne Murac, the director of operations, has just resigned, only five months after her appointment. The reason? Major disagreements over the OCOG's leadership, particularly the fact that she was forced to appoint the directors of the "clusters," whose names were chosen by political leaders and approved by the OCOG president. She was notably in charge of the final list of selected sites, which has still not been released. All this to say that it's yet another example of what we already suspected: that the omnipresence of politics will only harm the 2030 Olympics. And as long as things remain this way, there will be further tensions to come, you can be sure of that. The leaders of the two regions, starting with Renaud Muselier and Laurent Wauquiez*, by wanting to impose everything and leave no room for maneuver for the sporting world, are going to succeed in screwing everything up. Edgar Grospiron, with all due respect, doesn't have the political and social capital that Tony Estanguet had, and is too weak to really have any influence and establish a balance of power; he's condemned to simply rubber-stamp important decisions, and as long as it doesn't bother him, he'll stay in his position. Except that at some point, someone will have to put an end to this farce, whether it's the IOC or the French State; But when you consider that Macron and his Prime Minister's priorities are far removed from the 2030 Olympics right now... *(Yes, he's not the president of the region, but just like Putin wasn't the president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, right?)

All this shitty show for in the end not even having a USA - Iran in the draw : it's over, the USA is no longer the country of entertainment, this country is doomed.

The draw was rigged against France and I have evidence that more than justifies Infantino being indicted before the ICJ (for this and all his other misdeeds).

@Americans

It almost looks like a bad LinkedIn post... at least that's the impression I get. Nothing more than a series of platitudes (I mean, "We believe in the power of sport and the Australian spirit," thank goodness, I can't imagine them saying "We're a little dubious about the Australian spirit, though"?)

The other issue with the Lille stadium, which in my opinion is even more problematic than what has already been raised by Jeremie, is that it's a stadium used by LOSC (the local football club). It would likely require 2-3 months of occupancy during which LOSC wouldn't be able to play at their home stadium, and we'll be in the middle of the league season, possibly even European competitions. I absolutely cannot see LOSC and the city of Lille accepting this, especially since the Games aren't even being held in their city. (This wasn't an issue for Paris 2024, since it was in the middle of summer.)

"No plan B" Brings back memories...

And anyway, while the Netherlands is certainly further from the French Alps than Italy, it's also quite close to northern France (Heerenveen is only 400km from Lille), so you could say that it also allows us to give a few crumbs of these winter games to the French who live in the north of the country (since the Netherlands will still be closer than Nice, Albertville, etc.).

Thialf from Heerenveen is currently the frontrunner and has a high chance of being chosen. https://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2025/10/20/jo-2030-l-anneau-de-vitesse-en-italie-ou-aux-pays-bas-choix-de-raison-financier-ou-decision-politique_6648217_3242.html

It would cost far too much, certainly much more than going abroad. Furthermore, from what I've read recently, the Netherlands is even offering money (a few millions) to encourage OCOG 2030 to choose them over Italy, in addition to offering the French national team the opportunity to use their facilities for training in preparation for 2030.

Interesting to know; I had understood that there was a marketing/commercial aspect to all this, but I didn't know SLC had tried to negotiate for 2030. That makes it even more foolish of the IOC, I think. Because for 2030, we're going to have budget-conscious Games that will just tick the boxes (I don't doubt we'll deliver good Games, but they'll just be "functional"; we shouldn't expect 2030 to be as exceptional as 2024, especially given the budgetary constraints), whereas 2034 could have been more interesting for the French Alps. No, the bill concerning the organization of the Olympic Games has already passed the Senate; it now goes to the National Assembly, and its review is currently scheduled to begin on December 15th (but given the current complicated budgetary situation in France, it's possible that its review could be delayed by a few weeks). I expect the law to be definitively adopted around January or February (December seems a bit optimistic, knowing how the parliamentary process works in France).

The IOC messed up the awarding of the 2030 Games, for all the reasons I've already mentioned and others have said as well. Now, yes, obviously, Salt Lake City/Utah is a clear choice for 2030, but if they didn't want 2030 at all, what else can we do? We're not going to force them. The worst part is that for 2034, we can't even say that there were undeniably better bids than the French Alps bid among the candidate countries. It's not like 2032, where we can doubt that Brisbane really had the best bid among all the interested cities (Madrid was one of them, I think?).

https://www.lequipe.fr/Tous-sports/Actualites/Le-comite-d-organisation-des-jo-2030-dans-les-alpes-a-trouve-son-directeur-de-marque/1612178 Meanwhile, the OCOG's organizational chart continues to take shape with the appointment of brand director Mathieu Sakkas. This is a rather strategic position, as he will be in charge of the "brand image" of the French Alps 2030 Games: this includes everything related to visual identities, events linked to the Games, and potentially... ceremonies, since the brand director for Paris 2024 was none other than Thierry Reboul (who ultimately became one of the three key figures in the ceremonies team). We also learned yesterday that the agency in charge of the handover ceremony in Milan-Cortina closings was chosen, but we don't yet have the agency's name.

So why are you bothering us with talk about LA when the rest of your message explicitly mentions the new norm, "sunshine"? (And we don't know each other from Adam, keep your familiarities to yourself.)

Literally you?

Los Angeles is not part of the new bid process, as far as I know.

So they really thought about it. If they couldn't manage to shoehorn their administrative region's name into the Games' name, don't worry, they'll find a way to ruin the Olympic logo by somehow imposing their regional logos. I promise you, you'll miss the Utah 2034 logo. (Which, by the way, would be much better if the "letters" were thinner, but anyway, I like the concept even if it's probably a temporary logo.)

There is a world where we could have very seriously had "Auvergne-Rhône Alpes 2030" for 2030 if the other region had not wanted to organize the Games; believe me that with this idea in mind, having "Alpes françaises 2030" as a name is almost a blessing.

It's nice of them to do everything they can to hand the keys to the city to Die Linke next year.

So, Northern Ireland will therefore face Wales or Bosnia in the UEFA play-off final.