Sports Minister Trond Giske says that Norwegian sporting organizations will have to pay 22.3 per cent of the building costs for a possible Tromso 2018 Winter Olympics, severely limiting spending on sports arenas in the rest of Norway for a long time.
Tove Paule, President of the Norwegian Athletic Society, realizes the government probably won’t guarantee more money for Tromso’s 2018 bid, and now she’s looking for a way to break the deadlock. Paule told Aftenposten, “youth and children should not have to make do with substandard sports facilities just because of the Olympics”.
Aftenposten reports that using profits from state lotteries for the Games will also be strictly limited by the Sports Minister.
Leaders of Norway’s sporting organizations are meeting this weekend to discuss what can be done to break the seeming deadlock, reports Aftenposten. Without more government funding the organizations will have to break a resolution at last year’s National Sports Congress where it was agreed that a bid for the Olympics must not harm investments in youth sports.
Paule says she is convening an extra Sports Congress to see what the latest estimates of bidding for the Tromso Games would be. “Once we have the final figures we will know how to proceed. We will also be in regular contact (with the) Sports Minister”.
Meanwhile Petter Ronningen, head of Tromso 2018, remains optimistic. He told Aftenposten, “the Olympic project cannot be allowed to fail because of an issue like this. I firmly expect that the leaders of the Norwegian sporting community will do whatever is necessary to find a workable solution”.
