IOC Announces 2022 Winter Olympic Finalists - East Idaho News
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IOC Announces 2022 Winter Olympic Finalists

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GETTY 7714 OlympicFlag?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1404753944677Tony Duffy/Getty Images(LAUSANNE, Switzerland) — Faced with a slim list of choices, the International Olympic Committee announced on Monday that Beijing, Oslo, Norway, and Almaty, Kazakhstan, are the three finalists to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

“The Executive Board was impressed by the legacy plans of each of the three cities, and will continue to support any future candidate or host city in developing them further,” Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, said in a statement on the organization’s website.

No matter which city is awarded the Winter Olympics, these games will forever be known as the one no one wanted to host.

In May, Krakow joined the growing list of cities who do not want to host the Winter Games that year. The Polish city withdrew its bid this week after residents overwhelmingly voted against the plan.

Krakow had proposed co-hosting the games with neighboring Slovakia, but more than 70 percent of the voters in Krakow’s referendum said they did not want to host the event.

It is the latest city to reject the opportunity to host the games: Stockholm, Sweden, withdrew its bid in January citing cost; voters in Munich, Germany, rejected a proposal to host the games citing “greed” of the International Olympic Committee; and voters rejected a bid for Davos and St. Moritz to jointly hold the games.

Just last week, Lviv, Ukraine, became the latest city to drop out, citing the country’s ongoing political turmoil.

The rash of rejections could be attributed to the rising cost of hosting the games. The 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, for example, ran up a bill of about $51 billion, while the 2008 Beijing Games cost nearly $40 billion.

The host city will be chosen in July 2015.


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