Beijing selected to host 2022 Winter Olympics

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Beijing was selected Friday to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, defeating the bid from Almaty in a surprisingly close vote to become the first city awarded both the winter and summer games.

Beijing won the secret vote of the International Olympic Committee by 44-40, with one abstention. The vote was conducted by paper ballot, after the first electronic vote experienced technical faults with the voting tablets.

The Chinese capital, which hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, came in to the vote against the city from Kazakhstan as the strong favorite, despite its lack of natural snow.

Beijing was seen by IOC members as a safe, reliable choice that also offered vast commercial opportunities in a new winter sports market of more than 300 million people in northern China.

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 a last-minute impassioned plea for the IOC to be "brave" and give the games to his country, but it wasn't quite enough.

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