Sawt Falasteen - French businessman Roux de Bezieux takes over 2030 Winter Olympics after leadership turmoil

The organisation of the 2030 Games has been hit by a leadership crisis, with Edgar Grospiron resigning as head in September, the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the organising committee.

"Presiding over Alpes 2030 is an honour because above all it is a commitment to promoting, as a team, sport and France," Roux de Bezieux said.

The 64-year-old, the former president of France's largest employers' association (Medef) between 2018 and 2023, was on the board of the 2024 Paris Olympics organising committee and helped organise the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.

"Presiding over Alps 2030 is an honour because above all it is a commitment to promoting, as a team, sport and France," said Roux de Bezieux, who started his working career at French cosmetics giant L'Oreal before making his fortune creating or running several telecom operators and companies.

"It's the job of a lifetime!" he added, of the daunting Olympic challenge ahead.

"I'm taking this on with great enthusiasm. On a personal level, I experienced the two Olympic fortnights of Paris 2024 as an enchanted moment... and I would like to be able to bring that back to our fellow citizens in 2030."

Flanked by France's Sports Minister Marina Ferrari at a press conference in Lyon, Roux de Bezieux said of the 2030 Games: "We're not behind schedule, but we're not ahead of it either."

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

Grospiron 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 highly successful 2024 Paris Games on the organisation of the Olympics in the French Alps.

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.

With the opening ceremony just three and a half years away, Roux de Bezieux has a burgeoning inbox, not least convincing future sponsors, easing internal tensions and reassuring one and all about how the project is being managed.

Asked about his "contact list" and his ability to rally sponsors, he replied: "You won't sell a product if it's bad. This isn't about cronyism."

The French Alps Winter Olympics are scheduled for February 1-17, 2030, with the Paralympics to be held a month later between March 1-10.

D.Khalil--SF-PST