The key facts

  • Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux took over the 'Alpes 2030' organizing committee after Edgar Grospiron's resignation in September
  • Grospiron lost the support of the government, two regions, and the Olympic committees, which reported this to the IOC
  • The Games are scheduled for February 1–17, 2030, with the Paralympics on March 1–10

New leadership after a crisis

The 2030 Winter Olympic Games in the French Alps will be led by 64-year-old businessman Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, who headed France's largest employers' association, Medef, from 2018 to 2023. He served on the board of the Paris 2024 Olympic organizing committee and helped organize the 2023 Rugby World Cup. He began his career at L'Oréal and made his fortune founding and running telecommunications companies. This was reported by AFP.

Why the leadership changed

Preparations for the Games were accompanied by a leadership crisis: Edgar Grospiron, the 1992 Albertville Olympic champion in moguls, stepped down in September after 18 months in the role — another high-profile departure from the organizing committee. According to AFP, last month the project's key stakeholders — the French government, the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions, as well as France's Olympic and Paralympic committees — told the International Olympic Committee that they could no longer work with Grospiron. He had to contend with political infighting and tension with regional partners unhappy with attempts to transfer the methods of the successful Paris 2024 Olympics to the Alpine Games.

Tasks and timeline

At a press conference in Lyon in the presence of Sports Minister Marina Ferrari, Roux de Bézieux said the project was 'not behind schedule, but not ahead of it either.' He called the work 'a lifelong endeavor' and promised to give his compatriots back the 'enchanted moment' he himself experienced during the two Olympic weeks of Paris 2024. Among the immediate tasks are attracting sponsors, easing internal tensions, and restoring trust in the project's management. Asked about his connections for attracting sponsors, he replied: 'You can't sell a bad product. This is not cronyism.' The opening ceremony of the Games is scheduled for February 1, 2030 — that is, in about three and a half years; the competitions will run until February 17, and the Paralympics will take place from March 1 to 10.