Speaking at the ‘Can sport meet the new demands of cities?’ panel at the Global Sports Forum Barcelona, Samaranch Jr. offered the advice following Barcelona’s public expression of desire to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
“The most important thing for the IOC, for a city to be granted a Games, is that it has to have a real reason,” he said. “In Copenhagen [last October] three cities were exampling how they will host the Games - but we wanted to know why. It is hard to find the reason. Rio is a third world country becoming a first world country – it is a young country coming forward.
“At the IOC we are confident we can host a Winter Olympics in many of the places considering hosting them. I say – find a concrete reason why you want to host it.”
Samaranch Jr. also defended Vancouver’s green credentials, when asked by panel presenter Laurent Lachaux (Sales and Marketing Director of Amaury Sport Organisation) about the city having to import snow to six skiing and snowboarding events ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games following a lack of snowfall.
“It is not the loveliest thing in the world to see truckloads of snow coming but what else can you do? VANOC did an amazing job and they were pioneers of a Green Games. They took extraordinary measures in extraordinary situations… I don’t think that spoiled the notion of a Green Games,” he added.
