Today as part of the 128th IOC session held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Beijing, China was awarded the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The vote was 44-40 in favor of Beijing over Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Beijing will be the first city to host a summer and winter games. Beijing's Olympic budget is 1.5 billion dollars. Beijing has most venues in place so costs are low and reflects the IOC Olympics Agenda 2020 of sustainability. Almaty was seen as the riskier bid.
The Beijing bid has venues in Yangqing and Zhangjiakou which are 40 and 90 miles away, respectively. A high speed rail line will be built to cut travel time to these venues. China's mountains require man made snow, which was seized upon by Almaty as a Beijing weakness during the two cities 45 minute presentations to the IOC held before the vote.
The IOC saw Beijing as more reliable based on the delivery of the 2008 summer games.
Also at the IOC session, the bid selection process has been streamlined. From now on all bid cities will be considered as candidates and there will be no shortlist(which meant that cities could be dropped before the final vote).
There will be three phases. All cities that get their bid in before the deadline(which is Sept. 15) will go through these phases.
The three phases are:
Vision, Games Concept and Legacy (September 15, 2015 to May 2016).
Governance, Legal and Venue Funding (May to December 2016).
Games Delivery, Experience and Venue Legacy (December 2016 to September 2017).
So far Paris, Rome, Hamburg and Budapest are bidding on the 2024 summer games. Los Angeles and Toronto are expected to bid as well.
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