7 cities interested in hosting 2026 Winter Games, says IOC

The International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday that seven cities, or joint-bidding cities, have expressed interest in hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics. Canada’s Calgary, Austria’s Graz, Swedish capital Stockholm, Sion in Switzerland, Turkey’s Erzurum, Japan’s Sapporo and a joint bid from Italy’s Cortina d’Ampezzo, Milan and Turin are in the initial stages of the process, Reuters reported. Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter Games and Sapporo staged the 1972 event, while Cortina organized the 1956 Winter Olympics. The cities will now enter a dialogue stage until October, when the IOC will invite an unspecified number of them to take part in the one-year candidature phase. The bidding process for Games has been overhauled after a sharp slump in interest from potential cities in recent years. Costs for bid cities were cut and the campaign time was slashed in half.