IOC Awards 2030 Winter Games to French Alps, 2034 to Utah as Climate and Cost Pressures Reshape Olympics

On a warm July afternoon in Paris, far from any ski slope, members of the International Olympic Committee locked in the next decade of winter sports in a matter of minutes.

Meeting at their 142nd Session on July 24, 2024, the IOC voted overwhelmingly to award the 2030 Winter Olympics and Paralympics to a far‑flung network of venues in the French Alps and the 2034 edition to Utah, built largely on the bones of Salt Lake City’s 2002 Games. Officials cast the move as proof that the Olympics can adapt to climate change and public concern over cost. Critics in both countries say it also shows how tightly the IOC now controls where the Games go — and how little say local residents have in the decision.

A new host-selection era: targeted talks, not bidding wars

The votes capped a new, less visible process in which traditional bidding wars have been replaced by back‑channel talks and “Targeted Dialogue” with preferred hosts. The French and Utah projects were invited into that dialogue in November 2023, then recommended by the IOC’s Future Host Commission in June 2024. They faced no open competition when members raised their hands in Paris.

“There is no one‑size‑fits‑all model for hosting the Olympic Games,” Karl Stoss, the Austrian IOC member who chairs the Future Host Commission for the Winter Games, said when he urged colleagues to approve both projects. He described the French Alps and Utah plans as “very exciting” and “very different,” but united by a promise to rely on existing venues and tighter budgets.

France 2030: a multi-region Olympics with conditions attached

France’s victory in 2030 came with an asterisk. The designation was explicitly conditional on firm financial guarantees from the French state and regional governments and on an “Olympic law” to cover security, labor rules and major works. Under a timetable set with the IOC, the government must provide formal guarantees by Oct. 1, 2024, and secure parliamentary ratification of the enabling legislation by March 1, 2025.

Rather than centering on a single city, the “French Alps 2030” concept stretches across two regions — Auvergne‑Rhône‑Alpes and Provence‑Alpes‑Côte d’Azur — with four main Alpine clusters and a Mediterranean hub in Nice.

Venue clusters

• Haute‑Savoie: La Clusaz is slated for cross‑country skiing and Le Grand‑Bornand for biathlon, with an athletes’ village in nearby Saint‑Jean‑de‑Sixt.
• Savoie: The La Plagne track built for Albertville 1992 would again host bobsled, luge and skeleton, while Courchevel’s jumps and slopes and the storied pistes of Val d’Isère would stage Nordic combined and men’s alpine events. Another village is planned in Bozel.
• Hautes‑Alpes: Freestyle skiing and snowboard competitions are mapped to Serre‑Chevalier and Montgenèvre around Briançon, where organizers propose converting the historic Fort des Têtes military barracks into an athletes’ village.
• Nice (coastal hub): Ice hockey games are planned for the 30,000‑seat Allianz Riviera stadium configured with twin rinks, with figure skating and short track at a new or refurbished arena, and the media and broadcast centers near the city’s transport links.

France does not intend to build a long‑track speedskating oval. Instead, organizers plan to rent an existing arena abroad, with Turin’s Oval Lingotto in Italy and the Thialf rink in Heerenveen, Netherlands, cited as leading options. It would be the first time a core Winter Olympic venue is formally located outside the host country.

Bid documents say 93% of competition venues will be existing or temporary. Edgar Grospiron, the 1992 moguls champion who now heads the organizing committee, has called that the cornerstone of a more “sober” Games.

Budgets and scrutiny

The organizing committee in 2025 adopted an operating budget of about 2.1 billion euros, up modestly from the 2 billion euro figure cited when the Games were awarded. Grospiron described the number as “a cap that gives us the means to carry out our mission,” and said roughly three‑quarters of the money is expected from private sources including IOC revenue shares, domestic sponsors and ticket sales. The French state has pledged around 362 million euros, with the balance of public funding from the two host regions. A separate envelope “a little over 1 billion euros” is earmarked for venue upgrades and infrastructure.

France’s public finance watchdogs have warned that the initial projections may be optimistic. An inspection report cited by French media estimated that costs could be underestimated by about 260 million euros, a figure the government has not formally disputed.

Local opposition and legal challenges

Several elements of the plan have already drawn organized opposition.

In Nice, plans for a major permanent ice rink and modifications to Allianz Riviera have been costed at more than 200 million euros. Communist lawmaker Frédéric Maillot denounced the proposal in parliament as “budgetary madness,” arguing existing rinks elsewhere could host events for far less and questioning the long‑term need for large ice facilities on the Riviera.

In the Briançon valley, environmental groups and residents have challenged proposals to build an Olympic village at Fort des Têtes, a listed site above the town. Local activists argue that new construction there would damage a fragile alpine ecosystem and strain water resources in an area already affected by warming winters. One organizer told a regional newspaper that many locals “would rather say stop to ski slopes” than double down on a model of snow‑dependent mass tourism.

A citizen collective, the Collectif Citoyen JOP 2030, has filed legal actions in administrative courts in Paris, Lyon and Marseille seeking to suspend aspects of the project and require broader public debate. The group contends the Games are incompatible with France’s climate commitments and fiscally risky at a time when national debt hovers above 110% of gross domestic product.

Utah 2034: a return built on 2002 infrastructure

Utah’s bid, in contrast, is built on the argument that the infrastructure for a second Olympics is already in place — and has been kept in competitive condition for more than two decades.

The “Utah 2034” concept reuses all of the competition sites from 2002, from the ski resorts of Snowbasin and Deer Valley to Park City Mountain’s terrain parks, Soldier Hollow’s Nordic courses and the Utah Olympic Park’s jumps and sliding track. Ice events would again be spread across the Salt Lake City metropolitan area: long‑track speedskating at the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, figure skating and short track at the NBA’s Delta Center downtown, and hockey at the Maverik Center in West Valley City and the Peaks Ice Arena in Provo.

Organizers have proposed a single, central athletes’ village on the University of Utah campus, with every competition venue reachable in about an hour. Rice‑Eccles Stadium is slated to host opening and closing ceremonies, while a downtown block would be transformed into a temporary big air ramp and medals plaza. Curling and the main media center would be installed inside the existing Salt Palace Convention Center using temporary ice and seating.

Funding model and rebranding

The Utah committee’s operating budget is currently projected at about $2.84 billion, with total Games‑related spending — including security and some infrastructure — estimated near $3.9 billion. State leaders have repeatedly pledged that no new state tax money will be used for organizing costs beyond limited existing support for venue maintenance.

To fund legacy projects, the Utah committee has turned to private donors on an unusual scale. Its “Podium 34” campaign aims to raise $300 million in philanthropic contributions for youth sports, education, mental health and arts programs linked to the Games. By late 2025, officials said they had secured pledges exceeding $200 million, including multiple gifts of $20 million or more from Utah families and foundations. IOC President Kirsty Coventry praised the effort during a visit as “taking the helm of something unprecedented” in Olympic history.

In 2025, organizers and state leaders rebranded the project from “Salt Lake City–Utah 2034” to simply “Utah 2034,” emphasizing that venues stretch from Provo to Ogden and that state government is in charge. The Utah Legislature previously passed a law centralizing Olympic decision‑making in a small group of statewide officials and business leaders.

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, who chairs a Host Communities Committee of local governments, said she was disappointed to see the city’s name dropped from the official logo but pledged to work to ensure “benefits and responsibilities are shared” among host municipalities.

The climate dilemma: fewer cold places left

Both host regions are being held up by the IOC as models of “sustainable” Winter Games. In public summaries, Olympic officials cite their reliance on existing venues, compact plans and efforts to align with local climate policies.

At the same time, climate science is narrowing the field of future Winter Olympic hosts. Studies commissioned by academic teams and cited by the IOC have found that, under current emissions trajectories, only a small fraction of past host cities are likely to have reliable, cold February conditions by late century. A recent analysis of 93 existing Winter Olympic venues concluded that just over half would still be considered “climate reliable” by mid‑century without significant emissions cuts, with that number falling sharply by the 2080s.

Utah’s Wasatch Mountains still boast relatively dependable snow at high elevations, but state climate reports show Utah warming faster than the global average, with more drought and wildfire risk. In the Alps, winter temperatures are rising about twice as fast as the global mean, and low‑altitude ski areas already depend heavily on artificial snow. Both the French and Utah projects anticipate extensive snowmaking to guarantee competition‑grade surfaces, which in turn demands water and energy at a time when both are under scrutiny.

The IOC has begun to discuss the idea of rotating the Winter Games among a small group of “climate reliable” regions. The same November 2023 meeting that advanced the French Alps and Utah into Targeted Dialogue also granted a Swiss project a privileged path for a future edition, widely seen as a possible candidate for 2038.

A test case for the next Winter Olympics

By locking in 2030 and 2034 with two high‑altitude, infrastructure‑rich regions, Olympic leaders have bought themselves time to refine that model — and to test whether their promises of leaner, lower‑carbon Games can survive contact with local politics and warming winters.

By the time the flame reaches the French Alps in February 2030 and Utah’s Wasatch range four years later, the question will be whether these events look like the first examples of a new, scaled‑back Winter Olympics, or the last confident editions of a festival that is running out of cold places to call home.