Beijing aims to be first to host Summer, Winter Olympics

CHONGLI (China) — Clad in neon green from head to toe, Chinese snowboarder He Qiang is part of a growing cohort of middle-class enthusiasts in a country with little tradition of winter sports, but which is now seeking to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The 28-year-old escapes his office job in the Chinese capital for the skiing mecca of Chongli, nestled in mountains near the Great Wall, where Beijing hopes to stage Nordic skiing and other events in its attempt to become the first city to hold both the Winter and Summer Olympics.

“Snowboarding is just such an awesome feeling,” Mr He said, as a rare snowstorm swirled around him and frigid gusts whistled along the edges of his ski lift’s wind shield. “I can only imagine how much faster that will grow if we win the Winter Olympics (bid).”

Mr He said more friends are joining him on the three-hour bus ride to the sprawling Genting Resort with its 70km of trails, one of three key sites proposed to hold the Games.

Work has begun on a high-speed rail line that will reduce travel time from Beijing’s northern suburbs to only 50 minutes.

Victory for Beijing would mean overcoming early concerns over the region’s general lack of natural snow and its chronic air pollution.

Once considered an outlier as host, the Chinese capital now appears to be the front-runner following the withdrawal of other contenders and a thoroughly well-prepared bid effort.

Almaty, Kazakhstan, is the only remaining contender after cities in Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Norway and other countries dropped out.

“I believe the International Olympic Committee is looking for a safe, reliable and risk-free city. I think this city of Beijing meets those conditions,’’ said Mr Zhang Jiandong, Beijing’s Vice-Mayor and vice-president of the bid committee.

Beijing’s success in the 2008 Summer Olympics, strong government and public support as well as its pre-existing infrastructure make it ideal, Mr Zhang added.

Olympic inspectors will visit in March to survey the city’s three clusters of facilities, each with its own athletes’ village and media centre.

Beijing says its bid closely aligns with the International Olympic Council’s (IOC) 2020 goals for a more frugal and athlete-oriented Games, whose legacy will live on with robust sports programmes and continued use of venues.

In all, the city plans to spend US$3.9 billion (S$5.28 billion) on infrastructure and operations, while Mr Zhang said substantial private-sector investment and sponsorships would allay further costs.

That is a tiny fraction of the US$51 billion Russia spent on the Sochi Games and much closer to the US$3.5 billion to US$7.5 billion budgeted for the 2018 Winter Olympics in the South Korean resort city of Pyeongchang.

Originally, Beijing had been considered a long shot for hosting the Games because both Pyeongchang and Tokyo, which is hosting the 2020 Summer Games, are in Asia.

However, all that changed when several European bids dropped out over cost concerns or after voters rejected them in referendums.

The IOC will announce the winner at its July meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

While winter sports are relatively new to China, the country has been making up for lost time. Already a top medal earner in the Summer Games, China won its first Winter Olympic medals in 1992 and has racked up a total of 12 golds in skating and freestyle skiing.

It has now set its sights on ice hockey, with Beijing counting 1,500 players in its 97 youth teams.

China’s rising middle and upper classes have also taken to skiing with a vengeance, with more than two dozen ski resorts within driving range of Beijing receiving up to four million visitors annually, based on official figures.

The resorts employ thousands and generate tens of millions of dollars in hotel accommodation, lift tickets and equipment sales each season.

A major concern for Beijing’s bid is the lack of natural snow in the mountains outside the city, which receives a metre or less per season.

To compensate, existing resorts use an estimated one million tonnes of water per year to make snow, while Games organisers say rivers and reservoirs will provide adequate supply.

Organisers claim more than 95 per cent of the Chinese support holding the Games and conversations with residents of Chongli and Yanqing seem to bear out those numbers.

Politically, Beijing’s 2022 bid stands to be far less contentious than the one for 2008, when complaints were lobbed over everything — from relocation of city residents to China’s policies in Tibet.

That is largely a result of the lower profile of the winter event, as well as a sense of been there, done that, said visiting professor Susan Brownell at Heidelberg University and author of a book on the 2008 Olympics.

“I think that a 2022 Winter Games would have less of a domestic and international impact than the 2008 Games did,’’ she said.

“China already had its Olympic coming-out party,” she said, “and is now seen as a member of the world community in a way that it wasn’t previously.” AP