2030 Winter Olympics chief Grospiron quits

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The head of the organising committee for the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps, Edgar Grospiron, resigned on Thursday following months of tension.

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Grospiron’s exit is the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the organising committee of the next Winter Games.

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“His decision to step down as president is part of a deliberate, organised and fully assumed transition, in the interests of the project and its governance,” the COJOP organising committee said in a statement.

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“It reflects a shared desire with stakeholders to enable the organisation to quickly enter this new operational phase,” it added.

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Grospiron, 57, who won an Olympic ski gold in the moguls at the 1992 Albertville Games, had been in the job for 18 months.

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He said on his LinkedIn page that “after several months of tension within the organising committee, I draw the conclusion that the conditions are not met for me to continue this adventure”.

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Grospiron also had to contend with political power struggles and tensions with regional stakeholders who resented the efforts of some officials to impose methods used in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics on the organisation of the Games in the French Alps.

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Key Games stakeholders, including the French government and the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur and Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes regions, as well as the French Olympic and Paralympic committees, told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last month that they no longer believed they could work with Grospiron.

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In response to the resignation, the IOC thanked Grospiron for his “crucial work” and said “the economic fundamentals of the project are solid”.

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It added: “The project also benefits from the development of a robust venue master plan.”

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AFP

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