Former Olympic champion Grospiron wants to revive 2030 Winter Games in France after Fourcade's exit

Edgar Grospiron, the moguls Olympic champion in Albertville in 1992, is bidding to become president of the organising committee for the 2030 Winter Olympics in France, saying the project is lagging behind schedule.

Grospiron announced his candidacy on Tuesday after French biathlon star Martin Fourcade withdrew from the race, casting a shadow over preparations.

“The stakes are simple,” said Grospiron. “We have five years to deliver a flawless Games. It usually takes seven. We have a budget of two billion euros ($2.1 billion) to do it. In the past, it would have taken more like three billion. The question is how, and with whom?”

The Olympic bid was the only candidate and is a project centered on ski resorts in the French Alps and ice sports venues in the coastal city Nice.

Fourcade said earlier this month that he ended his bid because of divergences with the stakeholders of the French project.

“Martin was the natural, obvious candidate for this presidency,” said Grospiron. “His commitment to the Olympic movement and his vision of the Alpes 2030 project had my full support. He withdrew for reasons that I respect, and I am standing as his successor not out of opportunism, but because his departure must be remedied.”

The 2030 Games is on the tightest time scale of any modern Olympics, with just 5 1/2 years between the hosting award last July and the opening ceremony.

Olympic rules used to require the host to be picked seven years in advance. Salt Lake City also was chosen in Paris last July, more than nine years before its 2034 Winter Games open.

“The Alpes 2030 project has fallen behind schedule,” Grospiron said in a statement. “We need to move fast, unite and get everyone on board with a clear, pragmatic vision. I need to be able to move forward in harmony with the various stakeholders, and governance needs to be clear. Above all, we must avoid setting up a form of governance that could slow us down, perhaps divide us, or result in unsatisfactory compromises.”

The organizing committee is due to be announced later this month and Fourcade was seen as the front-runner to be named president after getting the support of French President Emmanuel Macron.

France has hosted the Winter Games three times: the inaugural 1924 edition in Chamonix, 1968 in Grenoble and 1992 in Albertville.

The 55-year-old Grospiron is the former head of France’s failed bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. He resigned arguing that he had not been given enough money to compete with rival candidates.

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