ORI Analysis · 2026
Findings & Conclusions
Our three-pillar evaluation of 9 candidate and confirmed host cities across economic viability, infrastructure readiness, and sustainability. Press the button below to walk through our key findings.
Overview
We evaluated 9 cities — 5 confirmed hosts (2026–2034) and 4 future
candidates — across three pillars: Economic Viability, Infrastructure
Readiness, and Environmental Sustainability. Each pillar draws on
real-world data sourced from IOC reports, ACI airport statistics,
WHO air quality databases, and NASA MODIS vegetation indices.
Pillar 1 · Economic Viability
Los Angeles 2028 is the only candidate projecting a net surplus
(+$0.6B), driven by a lean venue strategy that reuses 25 of 28 venues
from 1984 and existing infrastructure. Salt Lake City 2034 follows with
the lowest cost-overrun projection (20%). At the other end, Brisbane 2032
projects a 60% overrun — consistent with the pattern for first-time
large-scale hosts in mid-sized cities.
Pillar 2 · Infrastructure Readiness
Istanbul leads all 9 cities on raw infrastructure capacity: 140,000
hotel rooms, a 64 MPAX airport, and 220 km of urban rail. However,
its transit score (55/100) reflects uneven coverage across a city of
16 million. Trojena scores last on every infrastructure metric — a
greenfield alpine resort that would require the most from-scratch
build in Olympic history.
Pillar 3 · Environmental Sustainability
The French Alps and Brisbane record the best sustainability profiles:
PM2.5 below 10 µg/m³ and NDVI above 0.65. Istanbul (24.7 µg/m³) and
Johannesburg (27.5 µg/m³) both exceed the WHO annual PM2.5 guideline
(15 µg/m³) by nearly 2×. The historical record shows this is solvable —
Beijing reduced PM2.5 from 65 µg/m³ in 2008 to 25 µg/m³ by 2022
through its Blue Sky Plan.
Overall Conclusion
Across all three pillars, Los Angeles 2028 presents
the strongest overall candidacy: the only projected surplus, world-class
existing infrastructure, and steadily improving air quality. Among
future candidates, Santiago offers the best
cost-to-infrastructure balance given its successful 2023 Pan American
Games delivery. Trojena and
Johannesburg carry the highest combined risk and would
require the largest public investment to meet IOC baseline standards.