By Vincent Daheron
PARIS Sept 9 (Reuters) – Edgar Grospiron, president of the organising committee for the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in the French Alps, is set to leave his post just 18 months after his appointment, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Negotiations are under way over the terms of his departure, which is backed at “the highest levels of the French State”, the source said, capping a rocky period marked by governance disputes and a string of senior departures.
The move is expected to be formalised at a meeting of the organising committee’s executive board on Thursday.
The source, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to discuss the matter, said Grospiron had come close to being ousted during the Milan-Cortina Winter Games earlier this year.
On that occasion, director general Cyril Linette left instead, citing “insurmountable disagreements” with Grospiron.
Key Games stakeholders, including the French government, the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur and Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes regions, and the French Olympic and Paralympic committees, CNOSF and CPSF, told the International Olympic Committee in late August that “trust had been broken” with Grospiron, the source said.
The rupture followed a tense executive board meeting on July 23 at which Grospiron sought to push through two appointments, the source added.
Two days later, French Olympic Committee president Amelie Oudea-Castera told La Tribune Dimanche that the project was “once again facing governance problems”.
Grospiron, the 1992 Olympic moguls champion, was appointed in February 2025 and had already faced a governance crisis earlier this year.
That culminated in Linette’s departure in February following a series of other senior exits, including those of the organising committee’s operations director and communications director.
The French Alps project has encountered several challenges, including the decision in May to relocate the ice sports events from Nice to Lyon.
Nice had originally been designated as the Games’ southern “ice sports hub”. However, the city’s newly elected mayor, Eric Ciotti, refused to allow the use of the Allianz Riviera stadium, home to Nice football club, as a temporary ice rink for the men’s hockey competition.
The IOC’s wish to retain a unified ice sports cluster means the ice events will be moved to Lyon, with the exception of speed skating, which will be hosted at the Thialf ice arena in Heerenveen, the Netherlands.
(Reporting by Vincent Daheron, editing by Julien Pretot and Timothy Heritage)
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