DamC

Circling back to Munich's bid concept, I'm really surprised to see that, for a bid that prides itself on using existing venues and being fiscally responsible, the bid plans to build three temporary arenas in and around the Olympic Park, for Handball, Volleyball and Track Cycling. There's obviously a long way to go and the venue map will change if Munich actually gets to host but I wouldn't be surprised to see some events moved to Stuttgart (2 hours away by train or bus). The city has two large arenas and a very large exhibition hall that could house a temporary velodrome.

Hmm no there were actually nine women's games at Santa Giulia: 5 high profile games in the group stage, both semifinals and both finals (bronze and gold). Source: the official pdf schedule and the tournament's wikipedia page. Which brings another question: usually the smaller hockey arena is used as a secondary venue for the men's tournament on the days four games are played, to avoid scheduling four games in a row at the same venue. I wonder how they're to make it work if there's only one venue in use in Lyon/Paris... One solution would be to start the first game of the day as early as 9 am.

There's never gender equality in Olympic Ice Hockey though. In Milan most of the women's tournament (except a few high profile games) was played in a temporary venue at the exhibition center.

I wonder what IIHF will think of this... I don’t have any sources to back that up, but I have a feeling that the distance between the men’s and women’s hockey events might end up hurting the women’s tournament. I imagine that hockey fans who come for the men’s games usually take advantage of being at the Games to go see one or more women’s games as well... If the two tournaments are hundreds of kilometers apart, ticket sales for women’s hockey could suffer. I think it would make more sense to hold the men’s hockey games at the new ice arena in Nice and move Ice Skating and Short Track to Lyon, for the sake of consistency.

They don't but JPMorgan is a sponsor of the Cannes Film Festival since last year I think and its presence in Paris has been growing since Brexit. So I think they'll have many corporate clients they could offer trips to the French Alps to. On the retail banking side I wonder if that'll prevent a french bank from becoming a sponsor. But with the Visa sponsorhip I guess they could still find a way to have olympic branding on credit cards without having an actual bank as a sponsor.

Eric Ciotti now seeming more open to building the new ice arena next to the stadium for figure skating and short track, admits his backup plan is slightly stupid.

There's plenty of luxury shops and five-star hotels in Courchevel, don't worry about that

Ciotti today sounding less adamant than during the campaign, but he's still saying hockey inside the Allianz Riviera stadium is a big sticking point. https://www.franceinfo.fr/les-jeux-olympiques/alpes-francaises-2030/jo-alpes-2030-je-souhaite-les-jeux-a-nice-mais-des-elements-me-paraissent-incoherents-affirme-eric-ciotti-le-nouveau-maire-de-la-ville_7898240.html

The article doesn't address this point but I think it's a major issue obviously. If Lyon gets all the ice events, who will cover the cost if PACA reduces its funding? is AuRA ok with this? Will PACA be ok with having only Snowboarding/Freestyle Skiing and no ceremony at all? Musolier prides himself as being the originator of the bid, but his region could end up as a mere satellite host, a 2030 Livigno.

But it's safe to say the choice of Nice as the ice cluster is entirely thanks to Estrosi's involvement. Some interesting stuff in Le Parisien today. You can tell Muselier hates the new Nice mayor, even though he's pretending to not have a political reading of things: The article also says that Méribel could be back into the fold and Val d'Isère could be cut, given both cities elected new mayors this month. It also says the Briançon village is far from a done thing...

I think the Olympics are part of the long list of expensive endeavours Estrosi launched to raise the city's international profile and that started to irritate voters.

Let the sh**show begin

I think Annecy is a credible candidate for the opening ceremony. First of all, there's a big chance the new mayor will be the centrist candidate, which is an important factor as we all now. Secondly it has a large open esplanade in the center, along the lake, which is used to hosting a big fireworks festival every summer. It means the city is used to hosting big events with large crowds. It's well connected to other cities in the region with highways and trains. It's also 45 minutes away from the Saint-Jean-de-Sixt athletes' village and 1h30 away from the Bozel village, which means you could actually get athletes in the stadium for the ceremony. The main issue would be that money would have to be spent to build the ceremony stadium, unlike in Lyon.

The thing with Lyon is that.... it actually doesn't have a venue big enough for Ice Hockey unless IIHF agrees to downsize its requirements. The LDLC Arena, where part of the 2028 World Champs will take place only seats about 8.300 people in hockey/ice skating. I doubt IIHF would agree to hosting the finals there when they were promised two 15k venues originally. One solution would be to build a 10k hockey arena an exhibition hall in Eurexpo, the big convention center outside Lyon. But I don't know if IIHF would agree to the main hockey arena being a temporary venue, that never happened.

This is definitely going to cause headaches. If Ciotti goes through with his campaign promises, that means theoretically that figure skating and short track would have to move from the planned new arena to the existing exhibition hall in the city, which would be turned into a sports arena in the future. It hosted the ISU World Figure Skating Champs in the past with a capacity around 9.000 seats apparently. On the smaller side of figure skating olympic venues but not undoable I guess. The BIG problem however would be Ciotti's refusal to turn the Allianz Riviera football stadium into two ice hockey venues. If the OC needs to find another venue for Ice Hockey it would create a cascade of issues since no existing arena in the PACA region are suitable for Olympic Ice Hockey. If the events are moved out the region, I assume it would be entitled to reduce its contribution to the games budget. Then another crisis would open. Unless Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes agrees to pay more and Ice Hockey gets moved to Lyon, but it seems unlikely.