Winter Olympics 2030: French Alps plan sends speed skating to Italy or the Netherlands

The organising committee for the French Alps Games has confirmed that speed skating at the winter olympics 2030 will be held outside France, a decision that crystallises venue and governance questions as planning enters a fragile phase. The choice reflects an explicit condition agreed with the IOC and a wider push to avoid building new venues without a clear legacy.

Speed skating moved to Turin or Heerenveen; Milan-Cortina precedent noted

Organisers said the speed skating competition will use pre-existing venues in either Turin in northern Italy or Heerenveen in the Netherlands rather than being built inside France. The committee noted that speed skating events at Milan-Cortina 2026 took place in the south of the Italian city, and that the International Olympic Committee and Games organisers do not want to build new venues that would not have a definite legacy in the host region.

Edgar Grospiron, president of the French Alps 2030 organising committee, said holding the discipline outside France was a condition agreed with the IOC upon becoming hosts. He told a media conference in Milan on Saturday, the day before the 2026 hosts hand over responsibility for the Games: "This decision has already been taken, so the organising committee has to go on what has already been decided. " He added: "This is so that the Games in the French Alps can be as we want them to be. "

Grospiron also pointed out the move would be a first for a Games discipline to take place in another European country: "For the first time we will have a Games with a discipline in another European country. This will be new; we will see if other Games do it. " Organisers contrasted the plan with Paris 2024, when surfing took place on Tahiti—approximately 10, 000 miles away—while noting Tahiti is an overseas territory of France and that the 2030 speed skating venue(s) will be in independent nations.

Venue map: clusters in Nice, Briançon, Savoie and Haut‑Savoie; key sports still unsettled

The Games, billed as French Alps 2030, will be mostly spread across south‑east France with venue clusters in Nice, Briançon, Savoie and Haut‑Savoie. Grospiron said about 15% of sports and venues for 2030 have not yet been decided and that those details will be confirmed by June this year.

He named Nice as the planned location for figure skating and said curling and ice hockey will also take place there. Grospiron said the organising committee will decide which new sports, if any, will be added to the programme and whether any events will be removed. He also noted that the future of Nordic combined — the only event at Milan‑Cortina 2026 not to have a women's competition — has not yet been confirmed, and that ski mountaineering, which made its Olympic debut in 2026, is yet to be confirmed as a medal event in the French Alps programme.

Leadership crisis and national frustration over Winter Olympics 2030 planning

Turf wars and strategy fights have dogged the French Alps 2030 Organising Committee (Cojop) since its inception in 2024, and Paris figures are reported to be angry at what they see as haphazard, ineffective planning. With the Milan‑Cortina Games having closed Sunday, attention has shifted to the next edition in the French Alps.

The committee has suffered a spate of departures: Cojop's operations and communications directors resigned in December and January over strategic disagreements, and Grospiron said the organisation's chief executive was in the process of departing as well. French Sports Minister Marina Ferrari called an emergency meeting to seek a "rapid and complete clarification on the governance and stability of the organization. " An elected official involved in planning said the mood inside the Elysée Palace is that "enough is enough" over the chaos at Cojop, and a former presidential aide was quoted bluntly: "They're all clowns. We need to take back control. " Potential replacements for Grospiron have been discussed in national press, including former prime ministers Michel Barnier — who helped organise the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville — and Jean Castex.

Macron has not yet asked Grospiron to step down, a current presidential adviser said, and the president's trusted prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, is planning to take a larger role; a current adviser said Lecornu hopes to "put things in order" and is set to visit the Alps for the formal arrival of the Olympic flag on Monday. Cojop did not respond to an email requesting comment. The International Olympic Committee pointed to a Feb. 4 statement from Cojop saying all of its teams "are fully mobilized and focused on their mission. " Grospiron is a former Olympic freestyle skiing champion.

Sponsorship shortfalls, logistics and fractured local politics

Grospiron pledged last year to make the 2030 Winter Olympics the cheapest in history, but organisers acknowledge that will require securing sponsors and private partners. Cojop has yet to announce any sponsorships, and an individual working on planning warned that "private partners are seeing the bad publicity surrounding Alps 2030 and aren't daring to commit themselves. "

Organisers also face logistical complexity: unlike Paris 2024, which took place mainly in the French capital, the 2030 Games will stretch over a 600‑kilometer region spanning multiple French jurisdictions. Local leaders are already fighting over who gets to host what, and the situation has gotten so messy that officials were forced to unclear in the provided context