The hosts for the 2026 Winter Olympics will be decided on Monday. The choice is between Stockholm-Åre in Sweden and Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy.

The bidding process has suffered a number of hiccups however, with four candidates pulling out before the final vote. So why are so few countries keen to host big sporting events anymore?

Sweden vs. Italy

Both candidates for the 2026 Olympics are experienced hosts of winter sports events: Cortina d'Ampezzo already hosted the Winter Games in 1956, and both have organized Alpine and Nordic World Ski Championships on numerous occasions. 

Sweden's bid is spread over four locations, including the capital Stockholm, the winter resorts of Åre and Falun and, more unusually, Sigulda in Latvia, which will welcome the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions.

Italy's proposal also calls for four venues, with most ice-rink events held in Milan, and outdoor competitions distributed between Valtellina, Cortina and Val di Fiemme in the Italian Alps.

Members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland will vote at 4 p.m. local time (10 p.m. BJT) on Monday, with the result to be announced two hours later. 

And then there were two…

Either finalist will be able to organize a worthy Winter Games. Yet one year ago, there were seven candidates vying to be the next Olympic hosts.

Once a mark of prestige, hosting a big sports tournament has become much less appealing in recent years.

Starting with the 1992 Winter and Summer Olympics up until the 2020 Summer Games (awarded in 2013), three to six host candidates made it to the final stage of the selection process, and up to five rounds of voting were needed to choose a winner.

Since then however, the number of finalists has dwindled to just two at most. 

Financial reasons and a lack of public support are most commonly blamed for this lack of enthusiasm.

The 1976 Summer Games in Montreal famously left the Canadian city 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in debt. Many argue the 9.0-billion-U.S.-dollar tab for the 2004 Olympics in Athens contributed to Greece's massive debt crisis. And in Rio de Janeiro, venues and stadia built for the 2016 Games at a cost of over 13 billion U.S. dollars now stand abandoned and in ruin. 

While some countries have benefited from new or improved infrastructure thanks to the Games, critics have argued the money could be better spent elsewhere.

The German city of Hamburg was forced to withdraw its bid for 2024 after voters opposed hosting the Olympics in a referendum. Public opposition also led to Budapest pulling out of contention.

In the race for 2026, both the Swiss city of Sion and Calgary, Canada, fell foul of a referendum, while Austria pulled the plug on its Graz bid over a lack of popular support.

Coca-Cola & royal meeting

High expectations and demands by the IOC – which requires "state-of-the-art" facilities for all competitions – have added to the discontent.

Norway complained of "pompous" requests while it was a host candidate for the 2022 Winter Games, with the IOC demanding a meeting with the king, reserved traffic lanes on the roads for its members, and Coca-Cola products in all minibars. Oslo eventually withdrew from the race.

Small countries have also grumbled that the appetite for ever bigger and more spectacular Games means they don't stand a chance against larger, wealthier nations.

Cities that could once host Olympics on their own are thus increasingly joining forces to pull off a bid. Åre and Cortina paired up with the bigger cities of Stockholm and Milan. Malaysia and Singapore reportedly considered a joint candidacy for the 2032 Summer Games. Austria and Italy did the same for 2026, while Germany has gone one step further with a planned 2032 bid spread between 14 cities around its Rhine-Ruhr region. 

Feasible & sustainable

The IOC has recognized the problem and introduced reforms to reduce costs for host candidates and ensure that proposals fit countries' "sporting, economic, social and environmental long-term planning needs."

The Olympic Agenda 2020, approved in 2014, allows events to be held outside a host city or even host country – as is the case with the Åre bid – "for reasons of geography and sustainability," and encourages the use of existing or "temporary and demountable" venues.

Under the new Host City Contract, the IOC will also contribute 925 million US dollars to the organizer of the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Games. 

"In the past… we asked potential hosts how they would change their cities in order to win the Olympic Games. That made the process too burdensome and expensive, excluding many countries," IOC President Thomas Bach admitted in a Financial Times editorial in October.

"Now we realize that we must instead ask how we can adapt the games to best fit the long-term needs of your city," he wrote. The new rules will mean Olympics are "more feasible and sustainable to organize. No permanent constructions are required." In Paris and Los Angeles, over 90 percent of facilities due to be used in 2024 and 2028 already exist, Bach noted.

Stockholm-Åre and Milan-Cortina's 2026 bids are a sign that smaller candidates are still interested in hosting the world's biggest sports fest, and that the IOC will support them. Now the question is whether the new rules will encourage more candidates to sign up for hosting duties in 2030 and 2032.