Polish President Bronisław Komorowski has backed a joint Polish-Slovakian bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Polish and Slovakian Olympic committees had already signed a letter of intent regarding an official bid prior to Mr Komorowski’s declaration of support during his visit to Białka Tatrzanska, in southern Poland, last week. But with the president now on board it seems that the chances of a future Polish Olympics have now come a step closer.
“If we want to co-host such an event in 2022 we have to start working on it today,” Mr Komorowski said, adding that infrastructure improvements need to be completed in order for the bid to have a chance of success.
“We need to build cooperation with our Slovak neighbors. We could not prepare this bid without them because our Tatra mountains are not as big as those in Slovakia,” he said.

According to the proposed plan, Kraków would host both the opening and closing ceremonies, with the nearby resort of Zakopane hosting snowboarding, cross country skiing and the biathlon. Slovakia would organize other skiing events and ice hockey.

Poland still has time to come to a firm agreement and develop a detailed plan, with the final decision on the 2022 host not set to be made until July 31, 2015, at the 127th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur. The cities currently in the running are Almaty, Beijing, Munich, Nice, Oslo and Lviv.
Poland’s most successful Winter Olympic athletes of recent years are ski jumper Adam Małysz and cross-country skier Justyna Kowalczyk. Mr Małysz won two silver medals at the Vancouver 2010 games, while Ms Kowalczyk won gold, silver and bronze in the three cross-country events.

David Ingham