Beijing to Host 2022 Winter Olympics - Details Here!

The 2022 Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing China.

This was made official after the International Olympic Committee decided to award the honor to Beijing, making them the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics back in 2008, and now they get a chance to prepare once again as they aim to improve on their previous hosting.

Beijing eased out its closest adversary for the hosting, Almaty, Kazakhstan. Voting on which city would act as host was actually close, with Beijing winning out 44-40.

“Summer or Winter Games, they all represent the Olympic ideals” says retired NBA star and sports ambassador Yao Ming via the New York Times.

With this development, the host country will now have to start preparation for the Winter Games. The familiar venues will be used once again such as the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Water Cube arena, though more structures are expected to be built possibly farther from the city.

To ensure fast and safe transport for athletes and contingents, China is reportedly planning to build a high-speed rail to connect the venues.

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. That, plus the fact that the country had just gained independence in 1991, were also factors, seeing that citizens were also divided on whether hosting the Olympics would be a wise move.

As far as Beijing is concerned, it should be interesting to see how organizers will come up with lots of snow with the area known to be suffering from droughts and bad air quality.

As far as pollution is concerned, spokesman Xu Jicheng (through CNN) bats that the pollution problem has technically been reduced. However, with about seven more years before the actual staging of the Winter Games, he believes that all concerns regarding such will be clear and covered.

Additionally, Beijing has promised to tackle the human rights issue. Per Wang Hui, Beijing’s Bid Committee deputy secretary, the host country has promised to strictly comply with the rules and regulations that would be mandated by the IOC.

“It really is a safe choice,” Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said. “We know China will deliver on its promises.”

Though it wasn’t mentioned, it seems that aside from the fact that Beijing has a good track record of hosting the Summer Games in 2008, other external factors were also taken into consideration. This includes non-sporting factors and also being a tourist destination as well.