Though the application deadline for bids to host the 2030 Olympic and Paralympic Games is at least six years away, a group representing Poland and the Czech Republic are reportedly in the early stages of organizing a bid.
A joint bid from the two nations would involve 10 locations, and according to newspaper Przegląd Sportowy there would be six sites in Czech Republic and four in Poland. New reforms introduced by Olympic Agenda 2020 now allow for cross-border bids in cases where it is necessary and feasible.
Both nations have recently bid for the Olympics separately, and unsuccessfully. Neither have ever hosted the Winter Games
Prague in the Czech Republic filed a bid for the 2016 Summer Games but missed the shortlist before the Games were awarded to Rio.
Krakow in Poland bid to host the 2022 Winter Games but was one of four European bids to withdraw from the race after in 2014 Poles voted nearly seventy per cent against the bid in a referendum. Zakopane, also in Poland failed in a 2006 bid to host the Winter Games.
Now the two nations hope to share the costs and risks of organizing the Games by leveraging the Agenda 2020 principals.
An Olympic Stadium in Wroclaw would host the Opening Ceremony while curling, speed skating, figure skating, sliding events and some ski events would be held in Poland.
Ice hockey, ski jump, and other ski events would be staged in the Czech Republic, along with the Closing Ceremony in Prague.
Plans were revealed in local media Wednesday when Tomasz Stanek, chairman of the Committee on Sport, Tourism and Foreign Affairs in Poland told Przegląd Sportowy that it was time to share the plans.
Mayor of Szklarska Poręba in Poland, Miroslaw Graf, also discussed the opportunity on his Facebook page.
Krakow Mayor Jacek Majchrowski, who ordered the Krakow 2022 referendum midway through the campaign had placed blame for the defeat firmly on the previous bid administration. He told Polish media “when we launched our bid to host the Winter Olympics, we had a high level of public support.”
“Unfortunately, the former leaders of the Krakow Competition Committee 2022, headed by Civic Platform MP Jagna Marczulajtis-Walczak, squandered that trust, and we had too little time to rebuild it.”
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is expected to launch the 2026 Winter Games bid process this year with an application deadline in 2018 and a winner elected in 2019. Calgary in Canada, Sapporo in Japan, a Swiss candidate and possibly the 2022 bid runner-up Almaty. Kazakhstan are being discussed as potential bidders for that campaign.
