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Kazakhstan|sport|December 9, 2014 / 09:55 AM
Summer or winter Olympics now may be held in two countries at the same time

AKIPRESS.COM - olympics The International Olympic Committee (IOC) created the possibility for future summer or winter Olympic Games to take place in more than one country for money-saving reasons, IOC President Thomas Bach said.

The change also applies to splitting the host role between two cities in the same country, opening the way for a joint bid by the two California cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, among the four finalists in the likely U.S. candidature for the 2024 Summer Olympics. That is unlikely, since IOC members - many already predisposed to disdain for the U.S. - undoubtedly would ask why cities of that size needed help to stage the Games.

The decision’s first impact could be on the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games, since the IOC has suggested the organizers move the sledding sports out of South Korea to save the expense of building a $100 million bobsled, luge and skeleton facility in a country with no interest in those sports and likely no legacy use for the track.

Gunilla Lindberg of Sweden, chair of the IOC oversight commission for Pyeongchang, said sliding centers in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan would be alternatives.

"With the new policy in place, we shall see if either a bid committee or (organizing committee) approach us with a desire to change a proposed venue," said Svein Romstad of the U.S., chief executive of the International Luge Federation, in a text message. "To date, that has not happened."

The IOC signed off on changes that would allow the Tokyo 2020 Oympic organizers to resurrrect baseball and softball, pushed off the Olympic sports program after 2008.

If, as expected, Tokyo asks the IOC to add those sports, which are very popular in Japan, and possibly squash as well, the approval could come at the regularly scheduled IOC meeting in July.

"It is not sure for baseball and softball, because most other federations are against this," Francesco Ricci Bitti, head of the Association of Summer International Sports Federations, told several Italian journalists.

The World Baseball Softball Federation reacted with predictable joy.

"Today, there is there is great hope that our athletes will now have a real opportunity -- the pinnacle and highest honour in our sport -- to play for their country, aiming to win an Olympic gold medal," WBSF President Riccardo Fraccari said in a statement.

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