Applications for the 2014 Winter Olympics

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Candidate logo of the victorious candidate city of Sochi

Seven cities submitted applications to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host the 2014 Olympic Games and 2014 Paralympics . The applications of Almaty for Kazakhstan , Bordschomis for Georgia , Jacas for Spain and Sofias for Bulgaria were not accepted for the final selection in June 2006. While Jaca and Sofia had already applied several times to host the Olympic Winter Games, it was the first application in history for Almaty and Borjomi. For all four, it would have been the country's first winter games, with Spain already having summer games in 1992. Reasons for the non-consideration were, for example, the long journeys between the 200 kilometers away host cities Borjomi and Tbilisi in the Georgian application, the opening and closing ceremonies not planned in Jaca in the Spanish one and the insufficient response to the IOC questionnaire in the Bulgarian application. The South Korean city ​​of Pyeongchang , the Austrian city of Salzburg and the Russian city of Sochi received the approval for the final decision about the venue .

Application process

Evaluation of the candidate cities

A 13-person IOC evaluation commission headed by IOC Vice President Chiharu Igaya visited the three candidate cities in early 2007 to get an idea of ​​the possible competition venues. The report of the commission provided an evaluation of the candidacies, which is an indication of the voting decision of the IOC members. The reports were published in early June 2007. While Pyeongchang's application was presented as the best of the three and there were no points of criticism, Salzburg's applications criticized the low budget, the accommodation of the athletes and a media center that was too small, and Sochi's lack of all competition venues, the environmental hazard and the traffic infrastructure criticized. While the candidacies of Pyeongchang and Salzburg were rated excellent , Sochi only received the grade very good .

Choice of venue

The final decision on the location of the Games was made on July 4, 2007 in Guatemala City . 103 voting members of the IOC were allowed to vote, although the members of the applicant countries were not allowed to exercise their voting rights. Before the election, the three candidates had another chance to present the advantages of their application in a final presentation.

Salzburg failed in the first ballot with 25 votes, while Pyeongchang received the most votes. In the second ballot, Pyeongchang was defeated, as in the candidacy four years earlier, with 47 to 51 votes against Sochi. In 2014, the Winter Olympics were held for the first time in Russia and in a subtropical city by the sea, but also for the first time in the Caucasus .

Election results
city	country	1 round	2nd round
Sochi	Russia	34	51
Pyeongchang	South Korea	36	47
Salzburg	Austria	25th	-

Overview of the candidacies

Pyeongchang's candidacy

Logo of the 2014 Pyeongchang candidacy

Pyeongchang was the first city to apply for the 2014 Winter Olympics in December 2004 after beating Muju in the national elimination . The South Korean city already applied for the 2010 Winter Games , but lost Vancouver in the second ballot with 53:56 votes. Pyeongchang wanted to bring the Olympic Games to South Korea for the second time after the Summer Games in Seoul in 1988 and planned “Olympic Games of the short distance”, so that all competition venues could be reached within an hour from Pyeongchang.

All ice sports, with the exception of bobsleigh, tobogganing and skeleton, should be played in Gangneung , which is around 20 kilometers east of Pyeongchang. The ski and snow resort and an ice canal were to be built in the main town itself or in Jungbong and Bogwang , west of Pyeongchang, and some of them already existed during the application.

Salzburg's candidacy

Logo of Salzburg's candidacy 2014

After 2010, Salzburg applied for the second time in a row and for the fourth time in total for the Olympic Winter Games and was given preference over Innsbruck by the Austrian Olympic Committee . The application for 2014 was more compact than the one for 2010, partly because of the deletion of Kitzbühel , St. Johann and Ramsau as venues. The strengths of the candidacy not only cited the short distances between the venues, but also the high degree of re-use of the sports facilities, the experience in hosting large sporting events, the popularity of winter sports in Austria and the guaranteed snow at the venues. In addition, the application received growing support from the population, as well as from the Austrian government around Federal Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer . The Austrian application had by far the lowest budget, as most of the sports facilities already existed. Salzburg's application consisted of a two-core concept (two cluster concept) : an ice region around the city of Salzburg and a snow region in Pongau . There was also the bobsleigh and toboggan run in Schönau am Königssee in Bavaria .

Sochi's candidacy

This is the second time that Sochi has applied to host the Olympic Games. However, the city was not accepted as an official applicant in the competition to award the 2002 Winter Olympics. Sochi was the application with the highest budget, as all the competition venues have to be built first. Russian President Vladimir Putin campaigned heavily for the award of the Games to Russia. Therefore, the Russian government is investing a lot of money, 12 billion US dollars, in advertising and building the sports facilities. Two thirds of this is to be invested in the infrastructure. The ski area in the Krasnaya Polyana District opened in 2007 and is intended to be the primary venue for outdoor competitions, while the city of Sochi itself will host all indoor competitions. The ice rinks should be located in a park and be accessible on foot. The large number of rooms and the high level of support from the population and politicians were seen as the strengths of this candidacy.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 2014 Winter Olympic Games bids . GamesBids . Archived from the original on March 23, 2007. Retrieved April 2, 2007.
2. ↑ 2014 Olympics: Salzburg failed again. In: orf.at. Retrieved November 26, 2017 .