Sawt Falasteen - New Nice mayor poses a 'real problem' for 2030 Winter Olympics

As with the recent Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, the proposed venues for 2030 will stretch from the Alps to the southern Mediterranean city.

The new mayor, elected on Sunday, has no issue with Nice hosting the ice hockey, the figure skating, curling, short track skating and the closing ceremony, along with the Olympic Village, but he is opposed to where the venues have been allocated.

Ciotti wants the ice hockey to be moved from the stadium of the city's football club -- he does not want the Ligue 1 side to be homeless for months at a cost, he claims, of 80 million euros ($92.5 million).

The new mayor also wants to cancel the organisers' plans to build a skating arena and the Olympic village in the west of France's fifth largest city.

Instead, Ciotti has floated the idea of holding the figure skating at the city's existing exhibition centre, which hosted the 2012 world championships, and says the Olympic Village should be built on the site of a police barracks, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the site allocated by the organisers, which is due to be closed down in the next year.

Ciotti is adamant about the ice hockey being moved but admitted during the campaign that if the planning process for the skating rink was too far advanced then he was prepared to accept the existing plans.

The two sports would be a real cash cow for Nice as they represent 60% of the Games ticket revenues.

Ciotti, who once led the mainstream right-wing party the Republicans but was expelled in 2024 when he formed an alliance with the far-right National Rally (RN), is at odds with the region's president, Renaud Muselier.

When it came to the Games, Muselier -- who since 2022 has been a member of President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party -- was on the same page as Ciotti's predecessor, another former Republicains heavyweight, Christian Estrosi.

Indeed until they exchanged formal pleasantries on Monday, Muselier and Ciotti had not spoken since 2022 when the former quit the Republicans.

"We have a real problem regarding Nice with a mayor elected who is for the Games, but not in line with the original plan," Muselier, who oversees the progress made by Solideo, the public institution responsible for the delivery of the venues for the Olympics, said on Monday.

"Those plans need to be put in writing in order to see if they are viable for Nice. If not we will have to re-evaluate."

Muselier said he would not "hesitate to change everything if necessary" and said he had a "Plan B".

- 'Part and parcel' -

However, he cast doubt on the practicality of Ciotti's alternatives for the figure skating venue.

"I am not qualified to comment on such a matter but I have been told the venue (at the exhibition centre) is only at the level of a junior world championship," he said.

Muselier said time was short for Ciotti to come to a final decision.

"Solideo has been working on the figures which should be made public in April, so everything must be decided by the end of that month," he said.

As for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), its executive director Christophe Dubi told AFP last month that changes in political leadership were "part and parcel of organising a project over a seven-year period".

"Elections are held during that time. That is normal, it is part of the lifetime of a project.

"That won't force us to scrap plans which have been in the works for several years.

"Now it is for Solideo, who are working intensively on all these projects, to continue their excellent work," said Dubi, who unlike Muselier insisted there was no alternative plan.

Ciotti's election is just the latest problem to affect the 2030 Games.

The organising committee (Cojop) has lost four key players in the past three months owing to internal disagreements.

Last month chief executive Cyril Linette became the latest to step down after falling out with the Cojop president Edgar Grospiron, who had hand-picked him for the role in April last year.

P.AbuBaker--SF-PST