Norwegian Olympic Committee Secretary General Inge Andersen said that Oslo's surprise withdrawal from the race to stage the 2022 Winter Olympics last week "highlighted the need for more transparency in the bidding process," according to Karolos Grohmann of REUTERS. Oslo became the fourth city, after Stockholm, Lviv in Ukraine and Poland's Krakow "to pull out, leaving just two candidates, Kazakhstan's Almaty and Beijing." In a "strongly-worded response" after Oslo's withdrawal, the IOC lashed out at Norway, saying politicians were misinformed and "were left to take their decisions on the basis of half-truths and factual inaccuracies." Days before the Norwegian government pulled the plug, local media "were awash with details from IOC manuals and the host city contract, that fanned opposition to the Games." These details included "cocktail protocols, meeting with the country's king and stocked hotel bars." Even hotel room temperatures for IOC members and the quality of the smiles of the Olympic staff "were outlined in the 7,000-page documents." The IOC rejected the claims, saying that "these were merely suggestions or past practices at former Olympic host cities, but the damage was done." Andersen said, "It is important that the IOC goes through these manuals, which for the first time were made public, to make them in a way a country in western Europe, Canada or the United States can understand them." He added, however, that "these were not the only factors that resulted in Oslo's exit." A minority coalition government, a $50B price tag for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and the perception of the IOC within the country "all contributed to the city's withdrawal" (REUTERS, 10/9).
