Beijing chosen to host 2022 Winter Games

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Throughout more than 120 years of Olympic history, no city has hosted both the winter and summer games.

Beijing will be the first do it — and in the span of just 14 years.

The Chinese capital was awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics on Friday, beating Kazakh rival Almaty 4440 in a surprisingly close vote marred by technical problems, taking the games back to the city that hosted the summer version in 2008.

Beijing was seen by the International Olympic Committee as a secure, reliable choice that offered vast commercial opportunities in a new winter sports market of more than 300 million people in northern China.

“It really is a safe choice,” IOC President Thomas Bach said. “We know China will deliver on its promises.”

The IOC’s secret vote was conducted by paper ballot, after the first electronic vote experienced technical faults with the voting tablets and was not counted. The result of the first vote was not disclosed. There was one abstention in the paper ballot.

Beijing came in to the vote as the strong favorite, despite its lack of natural snow.

Almaty had hoped to bring the games to Central Asia for the first time but was a lesser- known quantity and viewed as a riskier choice by IOC members. Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov made an impassioned last-minute plea for the IOC to be “brave” and give the games to his country.

The tight margin caught most IOC members by surprise. “Gee, you wouldn’t have picked that close result a few months ago,” IOC Vice President John Coates of Australia said. “That address by the prime minister today was brilliantly crafted. I think that’s why it got close. But the size of China, the number of people that are going to be introduced to winter sport now, those were all factors.”

Bach