Beijing defeated Almaty, Kazakhstan, in a vote of the worldwide Olympic Committee on Friday. For example, since Almaty first placed an Olympic bid in 2000, the city’s GDP has doubled.
Beijing will host the winter Olympics 14 years after the 2008 summer Games was held there but the vote was much closer than expected – Beijing winning by 44 votes to 40.
The secret ballot held by 85 IOC members was conducted twice, first electronically and then by paper, after it was discovered the electronic system had malfunctioned.
Kazakhstan, which became independent from the former Soviet Union in 1991 but is still run by an authoritarian president, had sought the Games as a way to stamp its place on the world map.
Air quality and snow conditions are regarded as two of the major challenges for Beijing, but the bid officials have given an answer and solution to all the concerns. But, in an unexpected turn of events, they were the only two candidates left after four European cities – including Oslo and Stockholm – pulled out for political or financial reasons.
“We are not that enthusiastic about it because it is not the Summer Olympics but only the Winter Olympics”, Wu Xiaowen, an accountant in Beijing, told the Times. But the snow and sliding events would be at venues in Yangqing and Zhangjiakou, 60 and 140 kilometers (40 and 90 miles) outside Beijing. A deliberate high-speed rail line to Zhangjiakou is meant to chop journey time to 50 minutes.
The vote came after final 45-minute presentations by each bid city.
“Almaty is just not a risky selection for 2022″, Massimov informed the IOC delegates. “In fact, we are quite the opposite….
Almaty would stage “a Games that are centered on the needs of athletes and sport not on the needs of (the) host country’s global image” said Andrey Kryukov vice chairman of the Almaty bid committee in a veiled dig at China.
In what many saw as a concession to the IOC, the country’s constitutional court ruled to block a bill that would have banned “propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientation” in May, while bid members assured the IOC the country would be able to tap into a $75 billion sovereign wealth fund to finance the games if needed. The IOC itself, in its evaluation report, said it felt Beijing had underestimated both the amount of water needed and its ability to recover runoff from the slopes. “Let me assure you that if you choose Beijing the Chinese people will present to the world a fantastic, extraordinary and excellent Olympic Winter Games in Beijing”.
“I am very happy”, he said, “although I don’t know if I’ll live to see the actual games”. That’s helping to keep the total cost for operations and infrastructure to a projected $3 billion, hewing closely to the IOC’s new watchwords of frugality and sustainability.
Song indicated that Beijing is confident it can achieve WHO environmental standards while hosting the Olympic Winter Games.
Beijing’s mayor Wang Anshun hailed the win saying it had been a “remarkable day” for China. Ten million employees in areas as broad as venue design and construction, sports, marketing, hospitality, medical services, media operations, transport and many more, as well as 100,000 volunteers, offer the most unique experience that exists: delivering the biggest world sports event ever.
