«First country ever!»

Previously, the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have been hosted by cities or regions. The IOC is now also permitting applications taking a national approach.

Switzerland wants to become the first Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games ‘host country’ in the world. Our country is virtually predestined to spearhead this paradigm shift – and in any case, local concepts are no longer viable for Swiss Olympic. This means a decentralised Winter Games across the whole of Switzerland, for the whole of Switzerland. Across all four linguistic regions, bringing them together. 

As well as the existing infrastructure, major sporting events in coming years will also generate significant organisational knowledge at the relevant competition venues. We want to exploit these event management skills and organise coordinating the individual sporting disciplines on a regional level. 

The Swiss national winter sports federations have therefore launched and supported a bid for the very first time and have been heavily involved in the process from the outset. This makes it a national sports project for the whole of society and every region of Switzerland.

Switzerland has the infrastructure required, as well as a longstanding tradition of and experience in organising large sporting events. We want to build on this and take advantage of the expertise held by the numerous well-functioning local organising committees. We will be using existing venues. Switzerland is seeking to be the first host country with a unifying project that incorporates the entire country. The venues are decentralised and spread across the four language regions of Switzerland.