Beijing "looks like the strongest bidder left to host an Olympics that few other cities seem to want," as a combination of "political will and strong public support" has made the Chinese capital the front-runner for the '22 Games, according to Justin Bergman of the AP. Beijing "doesn't have a long winter sports tradition," but what "increasingly matters in the race for the 2022 Games is money, and China has plenty of that." The city just last year "was considered a long shot" to land the Games, but then "public opposition and financial concerns in Europe began whittling the field of candidates." Beijing is now "in a two-city race with Almaty, Kazakhstan," and the "promotional blitz has already begun." The Beijing 2022 Olympic Bid Committee last Friday "unveiled a Facebook page and Twitter feed and released a video depicting scenes of victorious Chinese athletes at previous Winter Games and an animation of a planned high-speed rail line that will connect venues in the city with those in the mountains in just 50 minutes." But the Winter Games "should also have snow, and this is one of the major challenges for the mountains northwest of Beijing, where Alpine skiing events would be held, and the mountains near the city of Zhangjiakou, the proposed site for Nordic skiing." China-based Duolemeidi Mountain Resort co-Founder Fabio Ries said that none of the ski resorts in the area "could operate without man-made snow." But Bergman writes the man-made snow "presents another problem: a severe water shortage in northern China that ski resorts have been blamed for exacerbating." Another concern is Beijing's "notorious air pollution" (AP, 11/4).
