SHANGHAI (AP) β The new front-runner to host the 2022 Winter Olympics doesn’t have a long winter sports tradition. Just 20 years ago, there were fewer than 10,000 skiers in China β out of a then-population of 1.2 billion.
Then there’s the matter of snow. Or lack of it. The mountains near Beijing where backers of the Olympic bid want to stage skiing events receive less than a meter (yard) of snow each winter.
But what increasingly matters in the race for the 2022 Games is money, and China has plenty of that. Combined with political will and strong public support, Beijing may be the strongest bidder left to host an Olympics that few other cities seem to want.
A year ago, Beijing was considered a long shot. Suddenly, the Chinese capital is in a two-city race with Almaty, Kazakhstan.
