Reviving the Flame

Sports associations see the Games as a great opportunity to rejuvenate winter sports in Switzerland with
20% respondent strongly agreeing and 47.3% agreeing. Most of these also believe the Games would benefit
people with disabilities to a large extend (33.3%) or to a certain extend (33.3%) (see Appendix V).
Within tourism actors, the OG can largely strengthen Swiss’ reputation as a winter sport destination
(69.2%) and have very good (25.5%) or good chances (43.6%) to increase winter tourism number in the long
term. Similarly, to sports organisations, tourism stakeholders believe such SME can increase to a large
extend (22.6%) or a good extend (45.2%) the offers for people with disabilities (see Appendix VI).
The survey also presents environmental associations’ opinion, which is extremely balanced. 47.3%
believe the OG can help promote sustainable behaviour, while only 31.3% see the OG as a leverage to foster
sustainable consciousness in the population (Swiss Olympic, 2017).
In addition to the environmental concerns, the ongoing debate on the bid focuses greatly on the
economic side and the budget demanded by the committee. A high scepticism is directed at the IOC, that
is still seen as a corrupted organisation and thus few people believe in its credibility (Reynard, 2017). The
greatest fear of the population is the risk of costs overrun, but criticisms are made on the budget allocated
to Sion 2026 by the Confederation. Recently, a comparison was made between the 1.2 billion budget of
Sion 2006 and the incoherence to have a 2.4 billion budget for 2026 (see appendix VII). To understand the
accountability of both candidacies, the author consulted the budgets of Sion 2006 and compared it to the
actual one (Appendix VIII). Based on these secondary researches, the following numbers can be presented:
Table 2 Candidacy budget for Sion 2006 and Sion 2026
Sion 2006 a
Candidacy
Sion 2026 b
Operating budget 1,262,100,000 CHF 2,076,000,000 CHF
From which infrastructures 314,720,000 CHF 100,000,000 CHF
Non OCOG budget (governmental
investments)
5,527,460,000 CHF 300,000,000 CHF
Total 6,789,560,000 CHF 2,476,000,000 CHF
Source: Author's table from various sources (a. Comité de Candidature Sion 2006, 1998; b. Sion 2026 Committee, 2016)
Clearly, the operating budget for Sion 2006 is lower than 20 years later. Nonetheless, it is the non OCOG
budget that brings cost overruns to the event. As one can see here, in 2006, the Swiss government was
ready to invest more than 5 billion Swiss Francs, while today, they prefer to insure 300 million for the
security and participate to the operating budget for 995 million CHF.
In addition to this budget analysis, in 2006, the local government was planning the Games in the canton
of Valais only, which implied the construction of new infrastructures: four ice rinks, a speed skating loop,
bobsleigh and sledge run, etc. (Comité de Candidature Sion 2006, 1998).
Context 21