TOKYO, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) — The northern Japanese metropolis of Sapporo on Tuesday introduced the withdrawal of its bid, spanning nearly a decade, to host the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The announcement was made by Sapporo Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed final month that the French Alps and U.S. Salt Lake City-Utah had been the only candidates to host the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games.
With the choices for the 2038 Games narrowed right down to Switzerland, Akimoto mentioned that “we have no choice but to consider starting from a clean slate.”
The determination marks the top of Sapporo’s nine-year efforts to safe the Winter Olympics, elevating questions on the way forward for the town’s involvement in worldwide sporting occasions.
In November 2014, Sapporo initially declared its candidacy for the 2026 Games underneath the management of the then-mayor Fumio Ueda. However, in September 2018, following a 6.6-magnitude earthquake in Hokkaido, Akimoto, who succeeded Ueda, shifted the bid’s focus to the 2030 Games.
The bidding has been going through sluggish help and rising public mistrust over the bribery and bid-rigging scandals linked to the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021, prompting the town to announce the abandonment of its bid for the 2030 Games in October this yr.
Having hosted the Games in 1972, Sapporo was as soon as thought-about the front-runner to host the Winter Olympics for a second time, however in accordance with native media, the IOC shifted its focus to different candidates after the scandals linked to the Tokyo Olympics.