China celebrates the anniversary of its winning the bid for the 2022 Winter Games. GETTY IMAGES
From '18-24 when Paris hosts the 2024 Summer Games represents six years of Olympics "being held solely on Asian soil, a feat not replicated in both the Games’ history," according to Patrick Blennerhassett of the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. Beijing will be the first city to host a summer and winter edition, a title "many thought may have been impossible as little as a decade ago." The Chinese capital taking the honor ahead of other int'l cities "points to a dynamic financially charged power shift." Failed bids outside Asia from "heavy hitters" have "piled up" when it comes to a number of events: Calgary "shot down a chance to host the Winter Olympics for the second time and Rome tried to no avail to get bids off the ground" for the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics. Even the U.S. had "high-profile failures," including N.Y. ('12), Chicago ('16) and L.A., only "nabbing" the 2028 Summer Olympics after its 2024 bid "tanked." Where did "all this Asian dominance get its start?" You "have to go all the way back" to '07-08 and "take a look at the global economic downturn" and the int'l power shift it created. North America and Europe were "the hardest hit by the financial crisis." When the selection process for '20 came around in '13, "many austerity measures in Europe had left the interested countries less than enthusiastic about getting behind an event that usually leaves a city with a massive amount of debt." When you get to '22, it became the Olympics "nobody wanted" -- except China. When "all was said and done" when the selection was finalized in '15, Beijing had "one laughable competitor" when the IOC made its pick: Almaty, Kazakhstan (SCMP, 1/4).
