Beijing gets Olympics: City will host 2022 Winter Olympics

Beijing on Friday narrowly won an IOC vote for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games that secured its place in sporting history. The result of the first vote was not disclosed.

“The IOC’s awarding of the 2022 Olympics to China is a slap in the face to China’s besieged human rights activists”, said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.

“Thanks to an additional contribution from the IOC of approximately 880 million US dollars to support the staging of the Olympic Winter Games in 2022, Beijing is confident that it will either break even or make a profit”. “China’s record on press freedom and human rights is not one that deserves to be rewarded”.

Beijing doesn’t get much snow, but a release says the IOC saw the Chinese capital as a ‘reliable and safe choice’.

Kazakhstan would have been the first central Asian nation to host the Winter Olympics but unfortunately its slogan of “Keeing it real” fell short of convincing the IOC committee, the Times added.

The IOC membership did keep it real, though, and this meant following the money and a tried-and-tested Olympic city.

“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“, Xi said in a video message to the IOC meeting.

The financial clout of oil-producing Kazakhstan has already enabled it to stage the Asian Winter Games and it is preparing to host the Winter Universiade in 2017.

Beijing beat Almaty, the Kazakhstan city, in the vote at the global Olympic Committee meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

He said IOC voters had been impressed by the final presentation by Kazakh prime minister Karim Massimov.

Delight and relief for the Beijing bid team.

Performers organised by the government, many in matching white outfits, danced and waved Chinese flags in front of the Bird’s Nest, the centrepiece for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

When Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008, the biggest concern was that the city’s heavy smog would choke athletes. Its mountain events would be held at venues in Yanqing and Zhangjiakou, 60 and 140 kilometers (40 and 90 miles) away from the city.

But back home the response was a little more muted with little of the public displays of joy which had greeted the decision to award the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing.

Lizzy Yarnold, who won gold for Britain in the skeleton in 2014, told BBC Radio Five: “I do hope the IOC take the human rights issues into consideration and make sure there is an actual change for the better”.

Salt Lake City considered mounting a bid for the 2022 Olympics but the United States Olympic Committee opted against submitting an American city as a candidate for the Games that year.

A planned high-speed rail line to Zhangjiakou will supposedly cut travel time to 50 minutes.