Using various "clusters" rather than gathering everything into one location is the new model for the Winter Olympics.
That's how it was in Milan Cortina in 2026 and that's how it will be in the French Alps in 2030.
Anyone who wants to see everything must be prepared to travel from the Mediterranean to the Swiss border and back - and maybe also to Italy or even the Netherlands.
This will probably be the model for the summer games as well, not just the winter ones. This is how the Olympic movement needs to approach sustainability issues going forward, says SOK's team manager Fredrik Joulamo.
Unclear about skating
The 2030 Olympics will be the first to be marketed not with a city or two, but instead an entire region. In French it will be Alpes Françaises 2030, in English French Alps 2030.
The competitions stretch from Nice on the Riviera, with ice hockey, curling and probably also figure skating, and then north towards the mountains with three different clusters for the alpine and Nordic sports.
The only question is where the skating will be held. France does not yet have a full-size indoor arena and building a new one has been dismissed as far too expensive.
Instead, consideration is being given to using the Italian Olympic Hall from Turin 2006, just ten miles from the French border - or even the Dutch skating mecca in Heerenveen.
Some form of renovation of the old outdoor rinks used in Grenoble in 1968 or Albertville in 1992 is not ruled out.
In any case, the organizers are determined to stage the cheapest Games to date.
However, this hardly applies to fans and spectators who can expect substantial costs for food and accommodation in France's most expensive tourist areas.
“Like a regular competition”
Athletes, in turn, will have few chances to experience much more than their own sport.
Just like in Milan Cortina.
"It's of course great fun to take part. But it feels a bit like a regular competition," says Swedish cross-country skier Anton Grahn, 21.
The Swedish Olympic Committee still thinks it has worked well in Italy, despite the distances.
But we would have liked better opportunities to build a fantastic Olympic feeling in the squad. For example, having curlers sitting and playing yatzy with hockey players has been difficult to achieve, says Fredrik Joulamo.
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Wiktor Nummelin/TT
Carl Goransson/TT
Facts: 2030 Winter Olympics
TT
The next Winter Olympics will be held February 1–17, 2030.
The games are being marketed as French Alps 2030 and will be staged in at least four different clusters between the Mediterranean and the Swiss border:
* Nice - with ice hockey, curling, closing ceremony and possibly figure skating.
* Briançon - with freestyle and snowboarding in Serre Chevalier and Montgenèvre
* Savoy - with alpine skiing in Val d'Isère, ski jumping and Nordic combined in Courchevel and bobsleigh, luge and skeleton in La Plagne
* Haute-Savoie - with cross-country skiing in La Clusaz and biathlon in Le Grand-Bornand.
Where the opening ceremony and skating competitions will be held is not yet clear.
The organizing committee is led by Edgar Grospiron, gold medalist in moguls when France last hosted the Winter Olympics in 1992.
