(ATR) Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan will have the chance to put their best foot forward while presenting to the entire IOC membership next week in Lausanne.
The 2022 Candidate City Briefing will take place on the grounds of the Olympic Museum on Tuesday, June 9 as the two bid cities are afforded 90 minutes, including a Q&A session, to present details of their bid projects for the 2022 Winter Games. Joining the IOC members will be leaders from the seven international winter sports federations.
"Speaking for the first time to the entire IOC membership and sports IFs is certainly a major milestone in the bid’s history, but we also see it as an extension of this productive conversation in the previous months," said Wang Hui, director of communications for Beijing 2022.
Almaty has the floor from 9–10:30 a.m., while Beijing is scheduled for 11 a.m – 12:30 p.m. The IOC members, winter IFs and evaluation commission will meet in the afternoon to internally discuss the presentations.
"Between now and the Host City Election, Beijing 2022 will focus on continuing to listen to the IOC, while explaining the strengths of our bid and transformative mutual benefits that awarding the Games to Beijing would bring," Wang said.
Presentations continue with a more interactive format on Wednesday, June 10, in which the two bid cities are encouraged to show videos and display models while interacting with IOC members. Each city will have a designated room at the Lausanne Palace Hotel with doors opening to the media in the afternoon.
As specified in the 137-page IOC Evaluation Commission report released on Monday, concerns related to the Beijing bid include the city’s longstanding pollution problem, lack of natural snow in the increasingly arid proposed mountain clusters – Yanqing and Zhangjiakou – and adequate water sources necessary to produce sufficient artificial snow.
"In his recent opinion piece, Mayor Wang provided a detailed look into the measures that have been put in place by the authorities to improve air quality in Beijing," the Beijing 2022 director of communications said.
"As he wrote, statistics give us confidence that, while there is still a lot to do, we are moving in the right direction. With all the measures in place and improvement of public awareness on environmental protection, experts expect the Beijing air to meet international norms by 2020."
The IOC report acknowledged that numerous government measures have been taken and environmental protection laws passed, but summarizes, "These combined efforts should ensure safe conditions for the athletes. However, increased energy demand in winter coupled with seasonal weather patterns that can bring pollutants from other regions could create air quality issues across the Games zones."
Considering the numerous questions and issues posed by Alexander Zhukov and the 2022 Evaluation Commission, related to both Beijing and Almaty, next week’s candidate bid presentations and interaction with the full IOC membership and winter federations could be critical in winning or swaying opinions.
The visit to Lausanne for the Beijing and Almaty delegations comes less than two months prior to the selection of a host city for the 2022 Games on July 31. All IOC members will vote during the 128th IOC session in Kuala Lumpur.
Written by Brian Pinelli
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