Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

sarajevo olympics

Vancouver-Whistler’s first official rival for the 2010 Winter Olympics stepped forward this week when it was announced Sarajevo will again be a candidate.

Vancouver-Whistler’s first official rival for the 2010 Winter Olympics stepped forward this week when it was announced Sarajevo will again be a candidate. The Bosnian Olympic Committee made the announcement on Monday, the 15th anniversary of the 1984 Winter Olympics held in the former Yugoslav city. Virtually all the facilities built for the 1984 Games were destroyed in the civil war which engulfed the city from 1992 to 1995 and tore the former Yugoslavia apart. Today Sarajevo is a city divided under the 1995 peace agreement. What remains of the 1984 Olympic facilities is also divided. The start of the Olympic bobsled run on Mount Trebevic is now in the Bosnian Serb entity and the finish is in Muslim-Croat federation territory. The lifts on Jahorina, the mountain where many ski events were held in 1984, have all been destroyed. The area is under Bosnian Serb control. Two ski lifts were recently rebuilt on mountains under Muslim-Croat control. Bosnian officials said Sarajevo’s candidacy would be officially submitted to the International Olympic Committee at the end of March. The site of the 2006 Winter Olympics will be announced in June. The site of the 2010 Winter Olympics won’t be decided until 2003.