Yeah, I'm here again but I think this question is fair: If the IOC chose a place in South America to host Winter Olympics...
1-Is this possible?
2-Assuming it is, the event would happen around July, right?
3-Would this be a good or a bad thing for athletes?
There is some level of provision for this. However, you must keep in mind that the IOC is very beholden to the broadcast networks that transmit its competitions. In fact, the American broadcast rights represent a great portion of the IOC's income and operating budget. The American broadcast network thus gets to make certain 'calls' with the IOC. As you might imagine, one of those is that the broadcast network (NBC and its affiliated cable networks, for many years now and many to come) doesn't want the Olympics to cut into other sports seasons that it might have the rights to. So, for example, NBC would like the Summer Olympics to be done before NFL season and things like that. The IOC has written into its own regulations a window of opportunity as far as dates for the Summer and Winter Olympics. If any potential applicant city wishes to propose to hold the Games outside those windows, they have to apply for a special dispensation. For example, when Doha bid for the Summer Olympics, both times it failed to make the shortlist, with the primary reason being the timing of the games (they proposed to hold the games in September/October to avoid intense heat). And that was even after talking to the IOC about the scheduling, and with higher technical scores in other areas than some bidders that did advance to the shortlist.
There is a lot of talk about the idea of a sub-equatorial Winter Games. While potentially more possible than moving the Summer Games out of the late July-early August timeframe, keep in mind that the Winter Games are held the same year as the World Cup, which takes up a great portion of that summer. In many (most?) the Winter Games would pale in popularity to the FIFA World Cup.
Here are some general pros and cons of the idea of the a southern hemisphere Winter Games.
FOR:
-spreads Winter Sport to new areas of the world
-would help develop summer training venues for athletes from northern climes
AGAINST:
-timing for broadcast networks - potential conflicts with other sports telecast contracts
-would potentially come into conflict with the World Cup in particular
-would northern audiences (representing the majority of Olympic audiences & IOC funding) tune in for a Winter Olympics held in the summer?
-conflict with the traditional seasons for Winter athletes and federations- for example, in figure skating, northern hemisphere summer is the time skaters work on their new programs. Would they skate new or old programs? Would they have time to prepare for the subsequent season? How would ISU judges and officials handle getting their summer getting cut short? etc etc
-Southern hemisphere interest in winter sports has traditionally been fairly low and few to no locations have shown interest in bidding for winter events
-Therefore, southern hemisphere locations have little hosting experience (mandatory for a competitive bid). South America is considered to have a lot of potential to create great ski venues, but it hasn't quite materialized. One place that HAS pursued off-season skiing is New Zealand, where many skiers train in the off-season. However, even they haven't shown much interest in hosting events, and would probably struggle to get them because of the aforementioned off-season issues
-The southern hemisphere countries with the goods to host Winter Olympics (eg a ski slope with 800 m vertical drop) tend to also have lower GDPs, so hosting would financially be more of a challenge for them.
As you can see, the challenges mostly outweigh the potential positives. I admit I find the idea of a southern hemisphere Winter Olympics fascinating. And I do think there is a much greater chance we will see a southern hemisphere Winter Olympics one day than a out-of-window Summer Olympics again.
