The Geneva public will likely have to approve any Olympic bid. (ATR)(ATR) Backers of a bid from Geneva, Switzerland say they will proceed for now, despite a Swiss Olympic Association decision to forego a 2018 bid.
Leaders of the Geneva tourism community are behind the bid. Marco Torriani, manager of the Hotel du Rhone; Jean-Pierre Jobin, president of the Geneva Tourism Bureau; and Jeremie Robyr, president of Tourism Valais lead the committee.
GEJO 2018 – for Geneva Jeux Olympiques – launched its plans with a pair of press conferences in Geneva and Zurich on Friday morning.
“We want most of all to initiate an exploration [of the project], so that people can just consider it, without restriction,” Jobin tells Swiss media.
But the Swiss Olympic Association has already considered a 2018 bid – and rejected it.
SOA president Jorg Schild announced in November that his NOC would not bid on the 2018 Games.
Switzerland fulfils most of the criteria necessary to a Winter Games candidature, he said, but the federal structure of the Swiss government makes it difficult to line up the full support from all levels of government and the community that is indispensable to a bid.
He also added that the Swiss appetite for winter sports is already saturated, and an Olympic bid could hardly bring growth to the industry.
The plans for Geneva are likely to face a referendum in the city and the canton. In 2002, a bid from national capital Bern for 2010 was sunk when voters in the city rejected an Olympic bid, even after the IOC had confirmed Bern as one of four finalists in the race.
The Geneva group is well aware of the SOA’s objections, NOC spokeswoman Claudia Imhasly is quoted in Swiss media. And the objections remain unchanged, she adds.
The first phase of funding for the Geneva bid, $175,000, is coming from betting company Sport-Toto.
Lake Geneva links Geneva and Lausanne. (ATR)While Geneva has no confirmed support from sport venues, GEJO leaders say they have contacted ski operators in the cantons of Valais and Vaud. Geneva is in Geneva canton, Sion is in Valais, which has bid for the Games before, and Vaud is home to Lausanne the IOC headquarters city.
The IOC announced the timetable for the 2018 Winter Games race. The application period will run from July to October 2009, with the IOC vote in July 2011.
Other cities with an interest in bidding are Munich, Germany, Tromso, Norway, PyeongChang, South Korea, Harbin, China along with possible bids from Bulgaria, France and the U.S.
Written by Maggie Lee
For general comments or questions, click here
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
