What’s next? The IOC's visit to Lyon to the future ice center for the 2030 Olympics should “bring serenity and stability” to a project which has gone through months of turbulence, believes the president of the French Ice Hockey Federation, Pierre-Yves Gerbeau.
While Edgar Grospiron resigned from the Alpes 2030 organizing committee at the end of a long governance crisis, the boss of the FFHG believes that we must “talk about sport now”, because of the “very tight schedule”, and he also pleads for the construction of new ice rinks in France, in an interview with AFP.
What do you expect from this visit by the International Olympic Committee which begins on Monday?
“I hope that it will bring serenity, tranquility and stability to this project which has been shaken up a lot, that we will stop talking about controversies and that everyone will come out of there saying, 'ok, it's good now'. The sites are there, the infrastructures and buildings are built, they just need to be modified internally. It's settled, it's stopped. I think that the delegation will be reassured by the operational implementation and schedule of Solideo (the company responsible for delivering the Olympic works). So let’s stop talking politics and talk sport now!”
Will the deadlines be met after the catastrophic relocation this spring of the Nice ice cream center to Lyon?
“The schedule is more than tight. But I am much less worried or even panicked than during the explosion in Nice, this disaster is well over. Now, we must not delay..."
How will this happen in practice regarding hockey?
“We will have the main infrastructure, the LDLC Arena, which will be a live test event in 2028, two years before the Games, since France is organizing the World Hockey Championships at the Accor Arena in Paris and the LDLC in Lyon. So instead of only having a test match like for other Olympic Games, we will have a tournament practically equivalent to the Olympic Games beforehand, so that is very positive for the staff, the players and the Cojop, it makes things a lot easier.
What can these Games bring to your sport?
“We hope that it will be an accelerator of popularity. But if it makes sense to move the entire ice cream center to Lyon, what is the legacy? (no ice rink will be built although this was the case in the initial project in Nice, Editor's note). Ice rinks were built for the 1968 and 1992 Games, but in 2030, having zero legacy... knowing that we have an aging rink park, that French ice hockey is on the rise and is becoming more and more popular, with more and more licensees.
Our rinks, whether in divisions 3, 2, 1 or in the professional league, are filled to capacity. We don't have any more room, the kids train at 10 o'clock in the evening or at 6 o'clock on Sunday morning. And today, to hold world championships in France, we can only work in sports halls. It is therefore absolutely necessary to relaunch an ice rink policy in France.
