When you and I are enjoying the courage and skill of athletes at the ski jump in Bejing, remember, 
1,500 Chinese people lost their homes for it.



At the 2022 Winter Olympics, No Snow Is No Problem for the I.O.C.

JULY 31, 2015
 
It’s a sad day when the International Olympic Committee cannot even clear one of the lowest bars for choosing the host city for the Winter Games: snow.

Yes, snow — the element that most would say is crucial for holding events that are contested on it.

But the I.O.C. on Friday still went ahead and chose Beijing to host the 2022 Winter Games, even though the mountains in those Olympic plans have “minimal annual snowfall” and the Games would “rely completely on artificial snow,” according to an I.O.C. evaluation report published in June.

The vote over the only other bid, from Almaty, Kazakhstan, was closer than expected, 44-40. But those tough-minded I.O.C. delegates weren’t wooed by Almaty and its picture-perfect setting or its longstanding tradition of winter sports. Or, of course, by its mountains, which Almaty organizers pointedly — and repeatedly — noted were covered by snow that actually fell from the sky.

While the Almaty bid’s slogan was “Keeping It Real,” Beijing’s could have been, “Keeping It Impractical.”

The skiing competitions will be held in two different areas, one 55 miles from the Chinese capital, the other 100 miles away. There is a plan for a high-speed railway that would cut the travel time there to just under an hour, but no mention of the cost of it in a proposal that was supposed to be transparent. The estimated 1,500 people who will lose their homes for the ski jump and the Olympic Village were apparently dismissed as collateral damage.

The most obvious consequence of Friday’s I.O.C. vote — eliminating the annoying hurdle that the Winter Games host actually has natural snow — is that it has created a precedent for holding a Winter Games almost anywhere. Imagine the possibilities.

A St. Tropez Winter Games. (Grenoble is, after all, just 140 miles away by air.) Slogan: Forget Snow, We’ve Got Sand.

Or Phoenix, where the luge track can run right down the side of the Grand Canyon. (It’s only a few hours away.)

Or Dubai, where the organizers have enough cash to fly everyone to the Alps for the skiing events. Then again, I take that back: People are probably skiing there as you read this, albeit inside a giant building. So bring on the Winter Games! Slogan: Keeping It Completely Indoors.

Already, Beijing gave us a glimpse at an Olympics held not as part of the city, but in a far-off corner of the city, devoid of an atmosphere that would reflect the world’s biggest sporting party. In 2008, the Olympic Park was miles from downtown Beijing. Instead, inside high gates, it was held in a massive Olympic Disney World, with brilliant venues and stunning architecture, but without the buzz and joy of the four Olympics I’d covered before.

Even in that manufactured sporting bubble, though, the organizers couldn’t manufacture real fans. Sure, they said, they had sold all of their tickets to the competitions, but — in a city of nearly 17 million residents — where were all the people?

There were so many empty seats that those organizers had to bring in “cheer squads” to fill stadiums and act happy. And that was for the summer sports. What will happen in 2022, when China is faced with trying to fill seats for winter sports, which have almost no history in that country in the first place?

But then, the I.O.C. obviously isn’t aiming for authenticity. Just bring back those cheer squads, Beijing, this time not in the bright yellow shirts they wore in 2008 but in bright yellow ski parkas that will never be worn again.

I’ll give Beijing this: Its 2008 Olympics were a marketing coup for the companies eager to court China’s 1.3 billion residents. Now how about 2022? There’s even more to be made, considering the huge commercial upside.

Yao Ming, the basketball player who was involved in the Olympic bid, saw the potential. At the news conference after Beijing won the bid, he joked that he might start a winter sports company. An associate on the bid team laughed and said she would join him.

It sounds funny, but it’s not.

There are serious problems — again — to having Beijing play host. In 2008, those who projected that bringing the Games there might open up China saw nothing of the sort. Potential protesters were detained, some sentenced to “re-education through labor.” Websites were blocked. A day after the closing ceremony, thick, yellow pollution returned to the city’s sky. Seven years later, the only use for most of the dusty, unloved venues from 2008 was as a lure for another chance at the Games in 2022.

Yet back to Beijing the world will go — somehow, some way.

The I.O.C. didn’t demand that the Chinese fulfill their promises in 2008, and in the interim the country’s human rights record has gotten worse, not better. It’s hard to expect change this time around.

The Trans-Ili mountains as seen from the Sunkar Ski Jumping Complex in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Almaty's Olympic bid organizers made it a point to note their mountains had real snow. Credit James Hill for The New York Times
President Xi Jinping of China, in a video statement before Friday’s vote, said, “We will honor all the commitments.” And something made the I.O.C. actually believe that, even though it had heard that pitch before and been burned by it.

Now Beijing’s second Games will test Thomas Bach, the I.O.C. president, in a way he has not been tested before.

Last fall, he announced that he would include an anti-discrimination clause in future contracts with host cities. But will he stand by that rule, in the face of a Chinese government unwilling to bend to outside influence and the corporate sponsors who have begun to drool?

If Beijing does not follow through on its guarantees, what can Bach do? He could always ask another city to jump in.

How about Boston?

It shot down a chance to host the Summer Games this week, but it does have at least one advantage over Beijing: It snows there in winter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/sports/olympics/at-the-2022-winter-olympics-no-snow-is-no-problem-for-the-ioc.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-middle-span-region&region=c-column-middle-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-middle-span-region