Catalonia reconsiders launching Winter Olympics bid

Catalan president Salvador Illa has said that he "completely agrees" with Spanish sports minister Pilar Alegría's proposal to recover the Winter Olympic Games candidacy bid.

Alegría had said that it would be interesting to recover the failed joint bid between Catalonia and its western region Aragó that was in motion to host the 2030 Winter Olympic Games.

She said that she would be in favour of launching a joint candidacy if she wins the 2027 regional election and replaces People's Party incumbent Jorge Azcón as president of Aragó. The regional president that rejected the previous joint bid with Catalonia was Javier Lambán, of the Socialist Party. Alegría would also run for the Socialists.

Alegría said during a party congress in the region on Saturday that the Spanish government and the Spanish Olympic Committee would support such a candidacy.

Meanwhile, grassroots organization Stop JJOO (Stop Jocs Olímpics, “Stop Olympic Games”) said that it will call for "massive demonstrations" if the Catalan government revives the idea of hosting the Olympic Games in the Pyrenees.

The entity said the proposal was an "absurdity” and “an attempt to recover a failed project."

The candidacy "was already rejected by residents of the Pyrenees," and the activists denoucned that the bid was another attempt at "imposing a speculative financial model."

Stop JJOO also highlighted in a written statement that residents in the area face a constant crisis with "exorbitant housing prices, pushed by the speculative real estate industry and an exorbitant tourism pressure that pushes out working families and young people from the Pyrenees."

Stop JJOO say they "require a radical change in public policies" to diversify the economy, guarantee long-term work for locals, and abandon the Olympic project, which would "only benefit the interests of a few."

"We face a general ​housing crisis across Catalonia, especially on the Pyrenees, and the only proposal [from the government] is to have more ski resorts, more second residences, more Airbnbs, and more tourism. This is incomprehensible and does not make sense," Bernat Lavaquiol, a spokesperson for Stop JJOO, told the Catalan News Agency (ACN).

Barcelona city council in October opened the door to possibly hosting a future Summer Olympic Games.

"We are always open to it, be it for 2036, 2040 or 2044," the councilor for sports, David Escudé, said at business event RethinkBCN back in October.

Meanwhile, the Barcelona Mayor, Jaume Collboni, said that "we will see" if the project goes ahead or not. He said so during the presentation of the new architectural project of the Fira de Barcelona exhibition halls coinciding with its centenary.  

'Unity'

During the negotiations between the Catalan and Aragonese governments in early 2022, the Spanish Olympic Committee urged regional authorities to find common ground and for "unity" to present the bid together.

Later on, both leaders agreed to split the competitions, however, the project was ruled out and the Catalan government officially said no to hosting the event in January 2024, a few months before the change of government from Esquerra's Pere Aragonès to Socialist's Salvador Illa. Spanish authorities had already ruled out such competition in 2022.

There was also a division among Catalans over the potential bid to host the 2030 Winter Olympics in the Pyrenees and Barcelona, with wildly differing opinions on climate and sustainability, sporting facilities, development and infrastructure, and costs. 

Listen to our Filling the Sink podcast from early 2022 to learn more about the controversy and the different positions across the territory.