Allianz Riviera, home of Ligue 1 football club OGC Nice, has been proposed to host ice hockey competitions at the 2030 Winter Olympic Games, with an innovative staging proposal being drawn up.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) in July confirmed that the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2030 and 2034 will be held in the French Alps and Salt Lake City-Utah, respectively, with the former’s event backed to proceed as planned earlier this month following the delivery of critical financial guarantees by Prime Minister Michel Barnier.
The French Alps 2030 vision for the regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes focuses on four venue hubs for the Games in Haute-Savoie, Savoie, Briançonnais and Nice Côte d’Azur.
The city of Nice has been earmarked to host short track skating, curling, figure skating and ice hockey at the Olympics. Various options have been weighed up for the staging of ice hockey, but the Allianz Riviera, which also hosted games for the football competitions during the 2024 Olympic Games, has now been lined up to take centre stage.
It is proposed that two temporary indoor rinks will be installed within the stadium to host both the men’s and women’s ice hockey competitions. Separated by a partition, the installation of the rinks will see the stadium divided up to effectively offer two venues with 15,530 seats apiece.
A temporary roof will also be installed to completely cover the Allianz Riviera, ensuring the correct conditions are in place to stage ice hockey games.
Mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, told Le Dauphiné Libéré: “It was necessary to group the events in the same area. We said to ourselves that we had to use existing facilities that already had a sporting purpose and limit ourselves to building only one ice rink.
“This is how we thought of the Allianz Riviera, an extraordinary infrastructure. Quite quickly, the IOC experts validated this opportunity to set up the two hockey rinks inside the stadium.”
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