Should the Winter Olympics and Paralympics Be One Event?
The Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics Could Grow By Joining Forces
We are not done with Paris 2024! This week on the podcast, Paralympic medalist Ellie Marks stops by to talk paraswimming, her Paris Paralympic races, her journey in parasport, and her experience in the US Army World Class Athlete Program.
Everyone Watches Para Sports
Enthusiasm and interest in the Paralympics reached an all-time high this summer. Ticket sales, viewership, and engagement all broke records. Fans started asking: why don’t we see more parasports? Why are the Olympics and Paralympics separate events?
There are many historic and organizational reasons why the events are separate (take a listen to our chat with the IPC’s Craig Spence for some context), but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) have been working to bring the two closer together. The Summer Games, however, are much too big to combine. The Paris 2024 Olympics included 329 medal events for 10,714 athletes. The Paralympics included 549 medal events for 4,400 athletes. The logistics of venues, accommodations, and coverage of a single event would be untenable.
But What About the Winter Games?
Both the Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics are much smaller than their summer counterparts. The 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics expects 2,900 athletes to compete in 116 medal events. Next year’s Winter Paralympics will see only 665 compete in 79 events across a mere six sports. Together, this would still be a fraction of the events, venues, and athletes that compete at the Summer Games.
Would it makes sense to have a combined Winter Olympics and Paralympics?
Money As a Pro
The Olympics and Paralympics are expensive. The budget for Milano-Cortina 2026 has risen to $1.9 billion. A single event could save money in logistics, staffing, and operations. Additional savings would be realized with only one Opening Ceremony and Closing Ceremony. Host cities would face fewer days of disruption and business closures.
The United States has already combined its Olympics and Paralympic national committee (USOPC). Countries could realize additional cost savings by combining their teams. The USOPC has been able to leverage this larger team for better deals with sponsors, especially in comparison to what Paralympians have been able to achieve on their own. One team means fewer negotiations, fewer but larger deals, less staff, and all the other benefits of smaller administration.
More Visibility for Para Sports
More events would be more exciting and streamline ticketing and promotion. The 2026 and 2030 Winter Olympics and Paralympics are regional Games, meaning venues are several travel hours apart from each other. Having more events at once makes each site more attractive to visitors.
Parasports would be presented as on par with Olympic events and promoted as equal. Fans would have access to both at the same time which could increase visibility for parasports.
World Athletics and the Commonwealth Games have incorporated some Paralympic sports into their events. The Commonwealth Games includes about 5000 athletes, which is still larger than a combined Winter Paralympics and Winter Olympics, and they have made it work.
IOC vs IPC
The most intractable problem of a single event, though it is mostly invisible to fans, is that the Olympics and Paralympics are run by two different organizations. Host cities must agree to hold both events and the local organizing committee is one entity, but the IOC and IPC run quite differently. Their relationships with sports federations is different. Most countries have not combined their national Olympic and Paralympic committees. Combining the two Games would cause a host of logistical nightmares that the public would likely never see but would make executing a successful Games even more of a herculean task than it already is.
Money As a Con
Since the host organizing committee already stages both the Olympics and Paralympics, much of the savings has already been realized. Venues and housing are used for both events. To stage them at the same time would require more venues, a larger athletes village, and many more volunteers and staff.
For example, there are two hockey tournaments in the Olympics and one in the Paralympics. Combining the events would require enough hockey ice to accommodate three simultaneous tournaments and additional practice ice. Curling would be even more problematic. At the moment, all five curling tournaments can be held in a single venue. But if the Olympic and Paralympic events were held simultaneously, there would be no one way a single venue could handle all the competitions.
The host city would lose revenue because the number of days of competition would be decreased. Fewer people would be able to attend. If more competitions are held simultaneously, then each spectator could attend fewer events so per visitor revenue would decrease as well.
Who Could Host?
The Winter Olympics and Paralympics already have a limited number of host cities available because of the requirements of snow and mountains, and that number is shrinking every year because of climate change. Making the Winter Games a larger single event would further limit host opportunities because of the need for more hotel accommodations and larger venues.
Less Visibility for Para Sports
It is likely that broadcast coverage would have to be cut as well, because more choices would have to be made among events running simultaneously. That is likely to hurt para sports more. If a broadcaster has a choice between alpine skiing or wheelchair curling, it is likely the broadcaster would choose the Olympic sport because of its perceived wider appeal. This is the exact opposite result needed to grow Paralympic winter sports.
It is a catch-22 that prevents para sports from growing in popularity: broadcasters don’t see a market for para sports so they don’t give them more air time; because viewers can’t watch para sports, they don’t become fans. If broadcasters have an excuse to cut costs by not airing para skiing or wheelchair curling, they will likely take it.
Limiting Growth for the Paralympics
The IOC is concerned about the explosion of growth in the Summer Olympics. They want to limit the number of sports, cap the athlete quota, and in general keep the Games manageable. While the winter counterpart has not struggled with this issue, a combined event might face that challenge. Since winter para sports are small and developing, it is likely that para sports would be cut first from a combined event rather than the more established Olympic sports. Could room be found in a combined schedule for a new winter para sport? Could another venue be found? Logistics could limit growth as well.
So What’s Next?
While it is unlikely that the IOC and IPC will ever fully integrate their events, integration of national committees would go a long way to raising the profile of Paralympic sports and providing more funding for athletes across the spectrum. Joining forces in many aspects of the Olympic and Paralympic can provide athletes with more leverage and bargaining power while preserving the differing legacies of both the Olympics and Paralympics. In the United States, both Olympic and Paralympic athletes have benefited from the combined USOPC. Maybe that is the place to focus on integration, rather than at the Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics.
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