Hunt starts to replace chief organiser of France's 2030 Winter Olympics

The 57-year-old former Olympic skiing champion quit on Thursday night following a meeting of executives from the regions in south-eastern France where the events will take place and the French Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

"His decision to step down as president is part of a deliberate, organised and fully supported transition, in the interests of the project and its governance," said a statement from the organising committee (Cojop).

"It reflects a shared commitment with stakeholders to enable the organisation to move swiftly into this new operational phase."

'Ambitious vision'

Cojop said an extraordinary general assembly would take place on Monday to thrash out how to proceed until the appointment of a new president.

"I would like to thank him [Grospiron] publicly," said French sports minister Marina Ferrari during an interview on Friday with French broadcaster Franceinfo.

“He has done a great deal of important work with the teams and has championed an ambitious vision for these Games, which are now on the right track."

Grospiron, who won gold in the moguls event in Albertville in south-eastern France in 1992, emerged as a candidate to become the face of the 2030 Games after former biathlete Martin Fourcade quit in February 2025.

Fourcade, France's most successful Winter Olympian with six golds and a silver from Vancouver, Sochi and Pyeonchang between 2010 and 2018, fell out with local politicians and clashed over the siting of the organising committee's headquarters. He preferred a base in Grenoble, Chamonix, Albertville or Aix-les-Bains rather than Lyon.

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Bumps on road to 2030

"We're going to encounter bumps," Grospiron told RFI just after he took up the job last year.

"But our mission is going to be to overcome them, to face them. The bigger the obstacle, the greater the opportunity behind it, and that's what we're going to be working on together with the organising committee."

However, within a year, Grospiron had lost a clutch of top executives.

Director of operations Anne Murac left in December 2025, followed by the director of communications, Arthur Richer, in January 2026.

Bertrand Méheut, the chair of the remuneration committee, departed just before the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. And Cojop chief executive Cyril Linette quit at the end of February 2026.

In May, organisers were forced to relocate the ice sports events from Nice to Lyon after Nice's newly elected mayor, Eric Ciotti, refused to allow the use of Nice football club's Allianz Riviera stadium as a temporary ice rink for ⁠the ​men's hockey competition.

In June, Cojop published a redrafted map of the sites for the eight sports that will feature in the Games between 1 and 17 February 2030. The 2030 Winter Olympics organising committee released a map in June showing the sites where the events will take place.

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La Clusaz and Le Grand-Bornand in the Haute-Savoie section will provide the venues for the cross-country skiing and biathlon. 

La Plagne, Courcheval and Méribel in the Savoie cluster will host events including the bobsleigh, luge and alpine skiing. Serre Chevalier and Montgenèvre in the Briançon cluster will stage the freestyle skiing and snowboarding.