Okay, so it might not change your world just yet, but don’t say Natives doesn’t strive to keep you up-to-date with what’s happening around the world of wintersports. Anyway, any Bulgarian Natives will be very excited to hear this.

The Olympics are a little like cars. Every time one is launched, everybody gets really excited at how new and modern it is, forgetting that all the hard work was done a decade or so earlier. For the Winter Olympics industry, forget Turin and even Whistler, it’s already all about who’s set to win the 2014 Games.

Sofia 2014 launched
And there’s a new candidate touting its credentials around the hallowed halls of the IOC. Bulgaria has launched “Sofia 2014”, its candidature for hosting the Winter Olympics in 8 years time. Yesterday they presented their concept for bid, which has to be submitted to the International Olympic Committee in January 2006.

With some particularly impressive Big Mountain Freeriding areas like Bankso, there’s a hope that they may include this as a demonstration sport at least . Now, that Natives would heartily condone – 50+foot cliff drops & powder chutes headlining Olympic TV coverage – we can only dream.

IOC need to make up their minds
It always takes an inordinately long time to decide which candidate deserves the ultimate sporting prize, because the IOC board members need to rack up enough free holidays, presents, schooling for their kids and ego-worshipful museums (Ed - er, allegedly & only pertaining to Nagano and Salt Lake City bids – it’s much better policed these days).

The International Olympic Committee will settle upon a final list of four candidate cities next June from Almaty (Kazakhstan), Borjomi (Georgia), Jaca (Spain), PyeongChang (Republic of Korea), Salzburg (Austria), Sochi (Russia) and Sofia (Bulgaria) in next June and then pick out the luckiest at the 119th IOC conference in Guatemala 2007.


Source: Xinhua