The new front-runner to host the 2022 Winter Olympics doesn’t have a long winter sports tradition. Then there’s the matter of snow, or lack thereof. The mountains near Beijing where Olympic bidders want to hold skiing events receive less than a meter (3 feet) of snow each winter.
But what increasingly matters in the race for the 2022 Games is money, and China has plenty of that. Combined with political will and strong public support, Beijing looks like the strongest bidder left to host an Olympics that few other cities seem to want.
A year ago, Beijing was considered a long shot to land the 2022 Games, particularly with other Asian countries already lined up to host the next two Olympics – the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.
But then public opposition and financial concerns in Europe began whittling the field of candidates one by one. St. Moritz/Davos and Munich dropped proposed bids after they were rejected in referendums in Switzerland and Germany. Stockholm; Krakow, Poland; Lviv, Ukraine; and Oslo, Norway, all dropped out of the race.
Suddenly, Beijing is in a two-city race with Almaty, Kazakhstan, another of the early long-shots. The host city will be selected next July at an International Olympic Committee assembly in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.