A myriad of factors led to the downfall of Japan’s once promising Winter Olympic bid by Sapporo, a city report concluded last month.
Among those were fears that the Hokkaido capital’s budget for snow removal could be negatively impacted by Games’ costs, burdening taxpayers.
An International Olympic Committee (IOC) study in 2022 found that Sapporo will be one of new few remaining climate capable regions able to host the Winter Games as late as 2080, with enough natural snow in February and March to stage events. This factor made the region an early favorite to host the Games and a promising candidate to be included in a permanent rotation.
But Sapporo spent 26.4 billion yen on snow removal operations in 2023 according to the Japan Times, marking a 22 percent increase over the prior year. Citizens reportedly feared these costs could continue to increase in the future and a Winter Olympic would cause the diversion of funds from that budget – tainting the appeal of the bid.
Other factors included a poor public relations campaign that failed to overcome the negative outcomes of the COVID-delayed Tokyo 2020 Summer Games held in 2021, and concerns that a Winter Games budget could balloon.
Tokyo’s budget skyrocketed prior to the Games and the expected benefits were diminished due to the pandemic-downscaled event. Post Games, Tokyo 2020 was rocked by a bribery and bid fixing scandal that led to arrests and damaged public support for the Olympics.
The capital built many new facilities to host the Games while Sapporo had intended to use already existing facilities to follow up the 1972 Winter Olympics held there.
To address concerns Sapporo bid officials decreased their budget of between 310 billion yen and 370 billion yen down to between 280 billion yen and 300 billion yen.
Other criticism surrounded the bid’s communication campaign that lacked social media engagement and provided unclear information without the aid of visuals.
Sapporo first targeted hosting the 2026 Winter Games, since awarded to Italy’s Milan-Cortina, but plans were called off after the 2018 Hokkaido Earthquake that resulted in widespread damage and fatalities. The city became an early favorite when it launched its bid to host in 2030, and looked to be the likely host after bids from Spain and Canada faltered due to domestic setbacks.
City officials were so confident, that they said a local referendum would not be necessary to assess support for the bid.
But when the Tokyo 2020 scandals grabbed international headlines, even the IOC turned its back on the bid and decided in December 2022 to delay the race in order to explore more options.
Salt Lake City, now the preferred candidate to host in 2034, was the backup choice for staging in 2030 if all other options fell through.
In 2023 bids from Sweden, Switzerland and the French Alps emerged and last November the French bid was named 2030 preferred candidate and will likely be awarded the Games after a July 24 election in Paris.
The IOC also advanced Switzerland to privileged dialogue to host the 2038 Games, meaning the national Olympic committee has an exclusive window until the end of 2027 to sign a contract with the IOC, or the race will reopen to other regions.
That could lock Sapporo out of the Games until 2042.
That realization led Sapporo Mayor Akimoto Katsuhiro to drop out of the Winter Games race for the forseeable future, hoping to start fresh when the window reopens.
