IOC open to earlier dates for future Winter Olympics and Paralympics due to hotter temperatures
MILAN (AP) — Staging future Winter Video games as early as January and the Paralympic Winter Video games in February is a chance due to the results of hotter temperatures, the Worldwide Olympic Committee stated Wednesday.
Each Winter Video games medal was received in February for the reason that 1964 Innsbruck Olympics opened Jan. 29, and transferring to January would probably disrupt scheduling of storied World Cup races and occasions. It additionally would extra immediately conflict with NFL and NBA schedules.
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The IOC is now reviewing Olympic Video games points within the first yr of Kirsty Coventry’s presidency and altering the winter version dates is an choice.
“Possibly we’re additionally discussing to convey the Winter Olympics a bit of bit earlier,” the IOC member overseeing the sports activities program evaluation, Karl Stoss, advised reporters. “To do it in January as a result of it has an implication for the Paralympics as effectively.”
The Milan Cortina Paralympic Winter Video games can be held March 6-15.
The IOC has lengthy acknowledged underneath Coventry’s predecessor Thomas Bach that altering local weather is a problem for locating future hosts and organizing competitions.
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“(March) could be very late as a result of the solar is powerful sufficient to soften the snow,” stated Stoss, whose house nation Austria is a conventional energy in Alpine snowboarding and ski leaping.
“Possibly the Paralympics can be in February and the opposite version can be in January. That will even be part of our dialogue,” he stated on the sidelines of the IOC’s eve-of-Olympics assembly in Milan.
The 100-plus IOC members ought to meet once more in June to make choices in regards to the Olympic evaluations, in a program referred to as “Match For The Future,” and whether or not so as to add new sports activities and occasions to the 2030 French Alps Winter Video games.
The French Alps version is presently anticipated to run Feb. 1-17 and the 2034 Utah Winter Video games from Feb. 10–26.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
