A Look Ahead to the 2030 French Alps Olympic Winter Games

The Olympic Flame at the Winter Games in Milan Cortina may have just been extinguished, but attention is already turning to the next edition: The 2030 Olympic Winter Games in the French Alps.

The 2026 event broke new ground in multiple ways. From a social perspective, Olympic digital platforms surpassed 100 million users for the first time and social media engagement doubled compared to Beijing 2022. In a sporting aspect, new events were added, including ski mountaineering, men’s/women’s dual moguls, women’s doubles luge, women’s large hill ski jumping, mixed team skeleton and team alpine combined. And from a delivery angle, it was the first Games to be delivered by new IOC President Kirsty Coventry, with the first Opening Ceremony to be held across four different locations.

In four years’ time, French Alps 2030 will usher in a new era for the Olympic Winter Games in their 26th edition. Taking place from February 1–17, 2030, in Nice and the French Alps region, 2030 will mark the seventh Olympic Games and the fourth Olympic Winter Games to be hosted by France, after Chamonix in 1924, Grenoble in 1968 and Albertville in 1992.

The region was awarded the right to host the Games by an 84–4 vote of IOC members at the 142nd IOC Session in Paris in July 2024.

Here is what we know so far about the 2030 Olympic Winter Games:

Event Locations

The 2030 Games will take place across four main areas, or clusters: Haute-Savoie, Savoie, Briançon and Nice.

From what we know already, Nice will host the ice hockey (at Stade de Nice, the home of OGC Nice Club de Foot) and curling (Palais Nikaia); Briançon will welcome freestyle skiing and snowboarding (Serre Chevalier and Montgenèvre); Savoie will deliver bobsled, luge, skeleton (La Plagne), alpine skiing, ski jumping and Nordic combined (Courcheval and Val-d’Isère) and Haute-Savoie will be home to cross-country skiing (La Clusaz) and biathlon (Le Grand-Bornand).

French Alps 2030 will retain a core focus on sustainability, so far pledging to deliver 93 percent of venues that are pre-existing or temporary to reduce the carbon footprint of the Games. The majority of the venues will also be legacy structures that were previously used for the Albertville Games in 1992.

Organizers say that they are confident that they can deliver a “spectacular” Olympic Winter Games that is “deeply rooted in the local area and guided by a strong commitment to environmental responsibility.” In a time when a warming climate and the use of artificial snow is making it more difficult to compete at or host an Olympic Winter Games, this could be a significant juncture for the staging of future Games.

Despite this, the speed skating events are due to be staged outside of France as organizers do not want to build any new venues that will not have a definite, long-term legacy for the host region. Instead, the competitions are set to be staged in either Heerenveen in the Netherlands or in Turin, Italy — site of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games.

Hosting events away from the host city or country is not without precedent at the Olympic Games. At the Olympic Summer Games in Paris in 2024, the French Polynesian island of Tahiti played host to the men’s and women’s surfing events — some 10,000 miles away from France.

Opening and Closing Ceremonies

Games organizers in recent years have taken alternative approaches to Opening and Closing Ceremonies and this trend will be no different in 2030.

In 2024 at the Paris Olympic Summer Games, the Opening Ceremony was the first to be held outside of a stadium in modern Olympic history. The ceremony consisted of a flotilla of barges carrying the athletes of each nation down the River Seine before finishing at a temporary venue in the Jardins du Trocadéro, where the official protocols took place, and Canadian singer Céline Dion sang Édith Piaf‘s song “Hymne à l’amour” from the first level of the Eiffel Tower. The Closing Ceremony was a much more traditional affair taking place in the Stade de France Olympic Stadium.

This month, the Opening Ceremony was split between four locations across Northern Italy (Milan, Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo) and included two cauldrons (Arco della Pace in Milan and in Piazza Dibona in Cortina d’Ampezzo), underscoring the widespread nature of the Games. Meanwhile, the Closing Ceremony was held in the ancient Arena di Verona, a Roman amphitheatre with a smaller, more intimate audience of no more than 15,000.

At the next Summer Games in 2028 in Los Angeles, California, the Opening Ceremony will be another trailblazer. For the first time, on July 14, 2028, two stadiums will be incorporated into the Opening Ceremony: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and SoFi Stadium (home to NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers). It is not yet clear how these stadiums will be used during the LA28 ceremony, nor what the Closing Ceremony will look like.

And in 2030 in the French Alps, plans for the Opening Ceremony are currently being kept under wraps but we can certainly expect something nuanced again. The Closing Ceremony, meanwhile, will take place on Nice’s seven-kilometer Promenade des Anglais — the first ceremony of its kind to be held along one promenade.

It is understandable that Games directors want their Opening and Closing ceremonies to be different to stand out in our memories. As we enter a new era of flexibly organized ceremonies, these can be important reference points that reflect the culture and heritage of a region or city, and which are inclusive to athletes who may not be able to attend a Ceremony at one venue due to the nature of their competition schedule.

And yet some aspects must always stay the same. As mandated by the Olympic Charter, it is required that the proceedings include an artistic program showcasing the culture of the host country and city, the parade of athletes and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron (or cauldrons).

Confirmed Sports

The IOC already approved the initial sports program two years ago, with biathlon, bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, luge, skating and skiing all confirmed as sports at French Alps 2030. However, the individual disciplines in each sport will be determined no earlier than June 2026 after a program review has been concluded.

All seven of the sports confirmed so far have been included at every edition of the Olympic Winter Games since Nagano 1998.

In the meantime, the French Alps 2030 Organizing Committee, chaired by Edgar Grospiron (a double Olympic medalist in moguls), can still propose additional sports to be included.

In Milan Cortina, it was reported that almost 3,000 athletes competed at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, spanning 116 events in 16 disciplines taking place across 15 venues.

Removal / Addition of Winter Olympics Sports

Grospiron has already intimated that six proposals for new events at the French Alps Games are on the table. Speaking to French news outlet Le Dauphiné, he said that speed skiing, telemark, cross-country, cyclo-cross and ice-cross were being studied as potential new sports for the Games.

Ice climbing is also a potential candidate to be included in the 2030 program. The sport has never had a presence on the Olympic stage but its connection with Alpine culture, sustainability and low-impact factors and participation in 25 nations could make it a viable option for the Games four years from now.

Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, has also suggested that he would be in favor of cross-country running and cyclo-cross being added to the Games program for 2030. He believed that it would allow for a greater mix of summer and winter sports that could also take place outside of a stadium, and moreover it would give more countries an opportunity to win events at the Winter Games for the first time.

However, Winter Olympic Federations Secretary General Colin Grahamslaw told the BBC that including sports that are “visually” summer competitions would “dilute the identity” of the Olympic Winter Games.
On the flip side, snowboard parallel giant slalom and Nordic combined events are reportedly at risk of being dropped from the 2030 program due to smaller TV audiences and limited global competition for podium positions.

Competing Countries

If cross-country running events are included in the Winter Olympic program, we could see a new wave of countries send athletes to the Games for the first time. The likes of Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Botswana in Africa have all demonstrated considerable pedigree in events in the World Athletics Cross Country Tour, while Bahrain in the Middle East would be expected to join them.

In Europe, athletes from Russia and Belarus were banned from participating in the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan Cortina due to their invasion of Ukraine and Belarus’ support for Russia’s war actions. However, a total of 20 Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN) — 13 from Russia and seven from Belarus — were permitted to participate under strict approval by the IOC to compete without national flags or anthems, and the situation on their potential participation in future Games will become clearer soon.

That being said, International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons this week announced that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to compete at the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games under their flags and with their national anthems — a decision which has prompted calls by officials from Ukraine, Czechia and Poland to boycott the Opening Ceremony in Verona on March 6.

2034 Olympic Winter Games

The 2034 Olympic Winter Games will take place in Utah and will be the 27th edition of the international multi-sport event. Taking place between February 10–26, 2034, Utah 2034 will be the fifth Olympic Winter Games (and tenth overall Games) to be hosted by the United States, following Lake Placid, New York (1932, 1980); Squaw Valley, California (1960); and Salt Lake City, Utah (2002).

It will also be the first Olympic Winter Games in the United States to be branded under a host U.S. state as opposed to an individual city.