De_Gambassi

Apparently, it'll only be a temporary venue. Which is also an option that Sion 2026 is looking at, alongside a foreign rink and an outdoor venue. They will defintly not built a permanent speed skating rink in any case at least. It's a trend the sliding sports and speed skating should be nervous of btw. If future WOG host cities are not even going to built new sliding or speed skating tracks, then what's left for the future of their sports (and for any possible expansion) ?

Speaking of Agenda 2020... Sion 2026 is even proposing to hold the speed skating events outside of the country, in Germany... or even in The Netherlands (in french) . The speed skating arena beeing the only venue Sion 2026 is missing. Could we see the first bidding candidate with zero venue needed to be buit ?

By July 2019 and the 134th IOC session (Milano), we will know where the 2026 Winter Olympic Games will be hold. The bidding process is yet to be officially started, but two cities are for now considered as the front runners. Two cities with a very Agenda 2020 feeling (even more so Sion who proposes venues from Lausanne to St Moritz). . Sion (SUI) http://sion2026.ch/ (fr/de) .Innsbruck (AUT) http://www.olympia2026.at/ (de) .Other Potential bidding cities : Lillehammer, Calgary, Salt Lake, Almaty, Gratz, etc. What are your thoughts ? Is agenda going to save the Winter OG ? EDIT: Innsbruck is dead after public vote

Cookson out with 8 votes (out of 45) Lappartient (FRA) is the new UCI president

Sorcery ?

In the old forum, we had a thread called "sports and tragedy" (something like that), maybe it'll be better to revive it ?

I believe there is no turning back at this point in Catalonia...

They really need to find a native english speaker with some diplomatic skills to write this kind of press realeases...

I... don't disagree. but Devillard will be in Montréal (full selection here). I can't find the full minimum standards list, but I believe they are set to have only athletes that can reach finals. Anyway, Aït Saïd just scored 15.250 today and finished second, only beaten by Petroúnias (15.500)

Apparently, they do. Hard as steel minimum standards for qualification is becoming a mantra of french sport since the swimming federation apllied that policy in the early 2000's (and that many beleieve it leads to the great results of french swimmers during the next decade). It's something I don't agree with, but who cares.

Yes

Samir Aït Saïd, the guy that many probably remember as "that gymnast who had that horrible accident during the Rio Games" has jumped back to competition this week-end during the french internationals and managed to secure its place in the final tomorrow. He scored 14.900 points which is eactly the score he needed to be in Montréal.

The new national stadium in Brussels sounds less and less likely to be ready for the Euro 2020 (in french) They are talking about Lille (like in not in Belgium Lille) as a backup plan

They did try... with Madrid 2020 Once Tokyo was chosen. It was quicly forgotten (there was a fronton 2020 world championship near Bordeaux in 2013 and then a whole bag of nothing). This time, it's like they don't even care.

"Youth and urban"

The country hosting the IOC cession can't bid for hosting the olympics chosen during this same cession. edit: well, Milan doesn't seem as a vey appealing winter games host city anyway. edit2: I see that we don't even have a dedicated thread for the 2026 race. Anyone up for that ?

My two cents regarding the most possible additional sports (probability to be chosen between brackets): - Sport Climbing (9/10): fresh, cheap enough to stage, decent medal chances, domestic following (Bercy Arena packed for recent world championship), growing, - Karate (8/10): Cheap to stage, uber high medals chances, doesn't appear like too french or too european, continuation from Tokyo 2020 - Squash (7/10): Cheap to stage and possibly set in any iconic Paris landscape, good enough medal chances, french president of the world federation (can't hurt),. Should be considered as a lock too, but it's squash and the Olympics, so you never know. - Surfing (7/10): Decent following in the South (South) West, historical legitimy, succesfull previous events (world cup stages, recent 2017 Biarritz WC), bring some needed sexyness to the Games. Would be guaranted to be hold in 3 consecutives games (2020-2028) - Boules sport (4/10): Biggest non olympic federation (300K members), almost guaranted medals, cheap to stage, national pastime. Could be seen as a frontrunner, but it suffers from a huge image problem (ie. it is not seen as a proper sport by most) Outsiders: Skateboarding, Esport, Baseball, Speed Roller, Wakeboarding, Pelota basque (I wish...). If one can't exclude anyone from the race at this point (who would have thought of skateboarding for Tokyo ?), these sports are by far the most likely to be chosen. If anyone can read french, I've put my thoughts in a bit more articulated way (here and here)

Soooo, for real ?, all right, let's start this thread. . Additional sports: As we all know, hosting cities are now free to add a certain number of extra sports and events to the olympic program. Only the 37 IOC recognised federations can apply for inclusion. For Tokyo, 26 of them applied, 7 were then short-listed, and finally, 5 were chosen (skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing, baseball/softball & karaté). As of today, the parisian commite has tried its best not to close the door to anyone (from E-sport to Pétanque). We are yet to know what will be the exact schedule of the bidding process, but apparently, the additional sports will be known by 2019. . New events: Not directly linked to the host, we can also expect the olympic program to move further into a more "youth and urban" direction. Gender equality is also likely to be pushed even futher.

The IOC would have to change its rules to allow Milan (or any other italian city) to bid. What's the distance between Milan and the ski resorts (and ST Moritz) ?

It's much more than possible. On a very side note, I'd never realized that the IOC had actual candidate cities bidding to host the freaking ioc cession. Bids that feature former top athletes, politicians, videos about nothing, ackward and pointless speeches. The whole package ! Sounds crazy to me .

That's not really up to the host city to choose that, but the IOC, right ? Sure they might try to push a bit for that to happen, but I don't see the IOC dropping its gender equality policy nor expanding the canoeing program anytime soon... Squash, Climbing, Surfing and Karate thick to many boxes to be passed on IMHO. Besides, every time the question was asked, they always answered like multiple sports were on the table anyway. I assume, we will see a similar number of extra sports and events than in Tokyo.

2024 additional sports to be announced by 2019

I didn't see that coming. I don't expect anything to happen though, but it's good, that some don't want to let the all thing just vanish.

Spring games ? (ie splitting the summer games in two)