Miquel Iceta, Minister of Culture and Sports, lamented the “missed opportunity” for the Pyrenees ’candidacy for the 2030 Winter Olympics and added that the Government did not hide its“ inconvenience and disgust ”in withdrawing the project before the lack of agreement between Aragon and Catalonia.
“The truth is this is a missed opportunity and we will not hide our frustration or disgust,” Iceta said at the Observatory for Equality presentation in the field of Culture.
“For the 2030 Games we did not arrive. The lack of agreement between the governments of Catalonia and Aragon prevented them from showing joint candidacy. Therefore, unfortunately, we are no longer talking about 2030 Games, ”he said.
“The future will have to be written on the fly and there is always the possibility that there will be an agreement or that there will be several candidatures, in which case it will be the COE that decides,” he said after reading the articles of the Olympic Charter states that, In case there are several candidates from the same country, the National Olympic Committee will select one of them.
“The rules of the game in this case are clear,” he stressed. “Because the COE wants to win, it needs to assess which is more technically powerful and has a greater likelihood of receiving IOC support.”
The minister said it was not up to him “to establish any kind of liability or make any blame on anyone” for the failure of the 2030 bid.
“I followed from the first moment the work of the COE to reach that agreement and present a powerful candidacy and the truth is it has done very well,” he added.
Iceta confirmed that, when he had the opportunity, he clarified to the Olympic authorities that government support for the project was “full.”
The minister recalled that the three potential rivals of the Spanish Pyrenees project, Sapporo (Japan), Salt Lake City (USA) and Vancouver (Canada), had already organized the Games, which gave them a guarantee before the IOC , but added that this organization is also interested in new territories.
“That was our gimmick. Unfortunately, the candidacy was not formal in the terms in which the COE talked to the IOC,” he said.
Source: La Verdad
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