The government of Switzerland has announced that it will fully support the country’s Olympic association, Swiss Olympic (SO), in its bid to host the 2038 Winter Olympic and Winter Paralympic Games.

Government approval means SO can now carry out the requisite planning and preparation to mount a bid for the event.

The federation is aiming to host a “sustainable, decentralized, and privately financed” edition of the games.

Urs Lehmann, Swiss Ski president and SO co-president, stated: “A project on the scale of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is not possible without fundamental political support from the public sector.

“We can now move forward to conduct further work with full political support.”

Switzerland has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, both in St. Moritz, in 1928 and 1948.

SO had originally put its efforts into bidding for the 2030 edition of the Winter Olympics, a bid based on the premise of hosting a nationwide games, as opposed to having a traditional single-city host, hence why the Olympic associations of Switzerland have already put their full support behind 2038’s bid.

At the time of that previous bid, Lehmann said: “Switzerland is in the fortunate position of already having practically all the necessary infrastructure - from sports facilities to accommodation to the transport network.”

The body initially stated 2030 was its focus, while 2034 was a backup option, but earlier this year both games were preliminarily awarded to other locations, the French Alps for 2030, and Salt Lake City, Utah (US) for 2034.

Switzerland has been targeting 2038 since then and has been in “privileged dialogue” with the IOC over its bid.

SO will finalize its bid by the end of 2027, with other likely hosts such as Stockholm–Åre, Sweden (which also bid to host in 2030) also likely to step in.

The last Winter Olympics were held in 2022, in Beijing, China, while the next will be held in 2026 in Milano-Cortina, Italy.

Switzerland is already set to host soccer’s Women’s European Championship in 2025, having been voted into the hosting role in April 2023.