Based on the IOC’s decision to award the 2020 Summer Games to Tokyo, Oslo will definitely have the edge. IOC decides to award the bid to Tokyo as it’s viewed as a safer decision in terms of facilities, safety, finance, and experience. Tokyo previously hosted the Summer Games, a similarity that is shared with Oslo, which hosted the 1952 Winter Games. (Another Norway city, Lillehammer hosted the 1994 Winter Games) Apart from that, Norway has the massive experience hosting winter sports as the country hosted 10 out of the 15 Olympic events at the highest discipline over the 10 years. This includes hosting two World Championships events.
But it seems like not everybody in Norway is happy about the country’s decision to bid for the games. In May, one of the two coalition parties in the government voted against the decision to host the games. The bid also failed to get the majority support of the country’s people as latest polls shows that less than half of the people support the city’s bid.
For Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, they had the lowest scores in 9 of the 14 criteria scores according the IOC technical assessment report on all candidate cities. This is a worrying sign for the bid team as the city scored the lowest in some critical area such as safety and security, finance and marketing, accommodation, and telecommunications.
But that doesn’t mean Almaty is completely ruled out of the 2022 race just because they had a poor score in IOC’s report. When IOC awarded the hosting rights of the 2016 Summer Games to Rio de Janeiro, the city actually had the lowest average scores among all four candidate cities. (The three other cities being Chicago (USA), Tokyo (Japan), and Madrid (Spain)) History will be created if Almaty successfully wins the bid as this will be the first time an Olympic Games will be hosted in Central Asia.
For Beijing, the biggest stumbling block will be the fact that Asia is hosting the 2018 Winter and 2020 Summer Olympic Games. It’s unusual for the same continent to host three straight Olympic Games in a row. It gets a lot trickier for the Beijing bid team the fact that the host city of the 2018 Winter Games - Pyeongchang, Korea is just 670 miles away from Beijing and Tokyo, the host city of the 2020 Summer Games is only 1300 miles east of China’s capital city. But if Beijing successfully win the bid, the city will be the only city in the Olympic history to have host both the summer and winter games.
Another issue that will falter the Beijing bid is the city’s pollution problem. Being one of the most polluted cities in the world, the city’s Air Pollution Index (API) reading once hit 671 at the start of the year as recorded by the US embassy in Beijing. (300-500 is considered hazardous) When Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Games, the country’s government spent billions to reduce the air pollution problem by forcing factories and power plant to shut down during the games. These pollution will only get worse especially when it comes to winter and will post a bigger problem for games organizers the fact that the games is also co-hosted with a nearby city called Zhangjiakou.
Below summarizes the key figure of the IOC’s report on all three host cities:
Criteria
|
Oslo (Norway)
|
Almaty (Kazakhstan)
|
Beijing (China)
|
Public Support^
|
36%
|
66%
|
77%
|
Capital Investment
|
USD 2,753 million
|
USD 3,782 million
|
USD 2,239 million
|
Criteria
|
Oslo (Norway)
|
Almaty (Kazakhstan)
|
Beijing (China)
|
Games Concept and Competition Venues
|
7 (min)
9 (max)
|
6 (min)
8.5 (max)
|
5.5 (min) *
7.5 (max)
|
Sports Experience
|
9 (min)
10 (max)
|
4.5 (min) *
7 (max)
|
6.5 (min)
8 (max)
|
Transport
|
7.5 (min)
8.5 (max)
|
6 (min)
8 (max)
|
5 (min) *
7.5 (max)
|
Safety and Security
|
8 (min)
9 (max)
|
5 (min) *
7 (max)
|
8 (min)
9 (max)
|
Telecommunications
|
8 (min)
9 (max)
|
5 (min) *
7 (max)
|
7 (min)
9 (max)
|
Click HERE for the full IOC technical assessment report on the 2022 Winter Olympic Games host cities.
By,
Zhe Xu
11th July 2014
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