Long road ahead for China's 2022 Winter Olympic bid
- By Mark Dreyer
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 30, 2013
But sources close to the Olympic movement say China won't hold anything back in its quest for 2022. A half-hearted bid would unnecessarily waste a lot of money, and worse still, it could leave a negative impression in voters' minds that could carry over to future bids. Unlike FIFA's World Cup hosting rules, which state that a continent can only hold one tournament every three cycles, IOC rules do not contain any such restrictions, so China's best bet is to ignore those who say three consecutive Asian Olympics will not happen, and focus instead on making its bid impossible to ignore.
Counting in Beijing's favor is the fact that the capital held a successful Games so recently. There are so many intangibles involved when calculating the profit/loss line from an Olympic Games, but the 2008 Olympics exceeded expectations in terms of sponsorship, and the overall experience gained from five years ago would still be very relevant today. In addition, many of the same people who carried that bid through to completion would be available to consult on this new bid. London, in contrast, just held its third Olympics, but not too many people surviving from the 1908 or 1948 editions would have been contributing helpful suggestions for 2012.
The bidding is a highly complex process, but the Chinese have shown they know what it takes to convince IOC members they can stage a successful, modern Olympics, as well as how best to tackle searching questions during the Executive Committee visits. Winter and Summer Games are different beasts, but it is important not to underestimate the scale and size of a Winter Olympics, and many of the same logistical and planning factors can apply to both.
Sustainability is an increasingly important part of the Olympic movement. Whereas 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar may claim they can conjure stadia out of thin air, and then ship them off to some poor, deserving nations after the tournament, Olympic hosts have to be more realistic. China drew criticism after the 2008 Olympics for having the proverbial white elephants: the baseball and rowing venues, among others, were later pictured in a state of considerable disrepair, while the jewel in the crown – the Bird's Nest stadium – has been criminally underused. For all the talk of development and progress that newly constructed venues can bring, this is an area that China surely must target if it wants to win the bid.
Last but not least, Beijing's bid must be better than all the others. The Ukrainian and joint Polish/Slovakian bids look to be the clear outsiders, but any of the rest could reasonably expect to win what is always a notoriously unpredictable process. Almaty bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics and explored the possibility of a repeat bid four years later. In addition, it hosted the 2011 Winter Asian Games and will welcome the Winter Student Games in 2017.
Stockholm's main concern is convincing the voters that it can stage alpine skiing events nearly 400 miles away from the capital, far further than Zhangjiakou is from Beijing. Oslo, the current favorite, hosted the Games in 1952 and is nailing its colors to a low-cost bid of around $5 billion, or less than one tenth of Sochi's extravagance early next year.
Winter sports are undoubtedly developing quickly in China at the moment and a successful bid would only serve to speed up that development. But if Beijing is denied, either this time or in the future, all is not lost: newly-elected IOC President Thomas Bach stressed that many cities whose bids were not ultimately successful still saw benefits as a direct result of their bids.
Mark Dreyer has 15 years of experience working in sports journalism and worked for Sky Sports, Fox Sports and AP Sports. He has covered the last three Olympic Games and has been based in China since 2007. He can be contacted at dreyermark@gmail.com
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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