Beijing to host 2022 Winter Olympics

Beijing was chosen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Friday as the host of the 2022 Winter Olympics, becoming the first city to be awarded both summer and winter Games. Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008.

The Chinese capital won a secret ballot of IOC members, which was held at the an IOC meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The only other candidate city was Almaty, Kazakhstan. The final tally was 44 votes for Beijing and 40 for Almaty.

Four European cities, including Stockholm and Oslo, were initially in the running to host the 2022 Olympics but pulled out one by one, citing lack of local support and concerns about costs spiraling out of control.

Beijing will use some of the venues built for the 2008 Games but will host many of the events far outside the city limits. One site is in Yanqing, and the other is in Zhangjiakou. Neither location is expected to have enough snow to facilitate competitions naturally, so the Beijing organizing committee has already indicated it plans on extensive and possibly exclusive use of artificial snow.

The IOC also awarded the Swiss city of Lausanne was awarded the Winter Youth Olympics for 2020, beating Brasov, Romania. Lillehammer, Norway, will host the Winter Youth Olympics in 2016. The Winter Youth Olympics, featuring seven sports from the Winter Games, is for athletes between the ages of 15 and 18.

jh/mz (AP, Reuters)