Debut Of Beijing Bidding Committees

Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games Bid Committee will attend the meeting of Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) in Bangkok on Nov. 7.

Wang Anshun, Mayor of Beijing and the chief of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games Bid Committee, will make the presentation at the ANOC meeting, according to Wang Hui, spokeswoman of the Bid Committee.

“It’s an international debut for the Bid Committee,” said Wang on Tuesday. “We will show the world our resolution and capabilities to host a successful Winter Olympic Games.”

The Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympic Games bid film was released Saturday and enjoyed global attention, Wang said.

After the pulling out of Norway’s Oslo last month, Beijing and Kazakhstan’s Almaty are the only two candidates for the 2022 Winter Games.

Oslo was the fourth city to pull out of the bidding process as Stockholm of Sweden, Krakow of Poland and Lviv of Ukraine had withdrawn their bids in r ecent months.

Beijing is confident it can host the 2022 Winter Olympics, an official said yesterday, after several withdrawals left the bid — initially seen as a dry run for a future event — the unlikely favorite.

The Chinese capital’s candidacy has been viewed as highly ambitious, given concerns over pollution and transportation, and the lack of a widespread winter sports tradition or top-class facilities.

“We respect their choices and we will focus on our own bid,” said Wang. “We are confident to win the bid.”

Beijing would host the third consecutive Olympics in the Far East if it wins the 2022 bid, with the 2018 Winter Games taking place in South Korea’s Pyeongchang, followed by the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

Ice sports would be staged in Beijing while snow events would be held in Zhangjiakou in the neighboring Hebei Province, around 200 kilometers away.

Pollution, which regularly affects northern China, is among the top worries. In recent weeks Beijing’s notorious smog has forced hundreds of athletes to don masks for the city’s marathon and also cut short a stage of the Tour of Beijing cycling race.

The city is currently enjoying blue skies after restrictions on factories and cars were imposed for the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Concerns have also been raised about the long distances between the Olympic sites, and the lack of an extensive network of ski resorts at high altitude.

There is also a shortage of expertise in sports such as luge and bobsleigh.

Wang defended Beijing’s bid, saying pollution was the “most important target” and facilities would receive a “makeover to meet the Olympic standard”.

The bid team has released a promotional video showing a new high-speed railway which will cut journey time between Beijing and Zhangjiakou from 3 hours 15 minutes to just 50 minutes.

The IOC will select the 2022 host city on July 31, 2015, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.