Edgar Grospiron, president of the 2030 Winter Olympics organizing committee, is leaving his post with immediate effect today, according to media reports.
Grospiron, who was only appointed 18 months ago, is set to step down, thus continuing a period of extreme instability at the Winter Olympics body, the Reuters publication has reported.
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Reuters has cited a source with direct knowledge of the matter as saying that Grospiron has been locked in negotiations around his departure, which has been approved by senior figures in the French government.
It has also been reported that Grospiron came close to being pushed aside by other senior figures in the games' organizing committee during the 2026 Winter Olympics, which took place in Northern Italy in February.
However, at the end of that event, it was instead Cyril Linette, chief executive of the 2030 French Alps body, who resigned, after citing 'irreconcilable differences' between him and Grospiron.
Linette, who was appointed CEO last April, had been publicly feuding with Grospiron over the past few months, but tensions escalated further when several other members of the games' leadership team, including the chief operating officer and the communications director, resigned.
Now, Reuters' source has claimed, a selection of senior Winter Games stakeholders have admitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that trust and relationships between those bodies and Grospiron have been irreparably damaged.
The breakdown came after a board meeting in late July.
France was conditionally awarded hosting rights to those games by the IOC in July 2024, although it took until October of that year for the necessary financial guarantees to be provided by the French government.
In May, the decision was taken to move all 2030 Winter Olympics ice sports events from the city of Nice to Lyon.
The 2030 Winter Olympics – which have a budget of €2 billion ($2.1 billion) – will be held between February 1 and 17. Specifically, the event will involve the regions of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
Grospiron, meanwhile, was a gold medallist in freestyle skiing at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville – the last time France hosted a Winter Games (although Paris did host last year's Summer Olympics). He then initially led the failed bid for France to host the Winter Olympics in 2018 (hosting rights were awarded to PyeongChang in South Korea), before resigning mid-campaign.
