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Members of the Almaty Olympic Winter Games 2022 candidate city, Timur Dossymbetov, Secretary General, National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Zauresh Amanzhilova, Vice Mayor of Almaty City, shake hands next to IOC Sports Director Christophe Dubi and IOC head of Olympic bid city coordination Jacqueline Barrett.Anthony Anex/The Associated Press

Only China and Kazakhstan want to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. It's the party almost nobody wants to host.

Beijing and Almaty are the only two cities with official bids in to the International Olympic Committee for the 2022 Games. The list of candidates was originally much bigger, but several cities dropped out of the race.

Potential bids from Switzerland and Germany were abandoned before official campaigns even started, when their citizens voted no in referendums. Lviv, Ukraine, dropped out amid the country's political turmoil. Krakow, Poland, pulled out after its voters rejected the bid by a 70-per-cent margin. Stockholm, Sweden, and then Oslo, Norway, each withdrew after failing to garner financial support from their governments.

Hosting the Winter Olympics has always been expensive, but that never used to stop cities from bidding. These days, the idea of blowing budgets on extravagant venues is a tougher sell, as is the notion of ensuring the Olympics leave behind legacies rather than abandoned buildings, useless infrastructure and debt that lingers for decades.

Many cities were scared off by the $51-billion (U.S.) price tag associated with the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, the most expensive Olympics in history. Some of that money went to long-term regeneration and infrastructure in the region – not the cost of running the Games – yet the hefty expenses are still frightening. Under new president Thomas Bach, the IOC has been working to better explain the difference between operating and capital budgets.

"We have to communicate, communicate, communicate about the two different budgets," Mr. Bach told the Associated Press after the Winter Olympic powerhouse of Norway pulled out. "We have to see how we can reduce the costs of the management of the Games and the cost of bidding for the Games."

Another turnoff for some potential bidders may have been the high-handed demands of the IOC. When Oslo pulled out of the running, a Norwegian newspaper ran excerpts from the IOC manual for host cities, including lavish IOC hospitality suggestions such as free booze and receptions with heads of state.

Legacy is key in the minds of many, as several past Olympic cities remain saddled with deserted multimillion-dollar venues.

Pictures have recently emerged showing several of the Sochi Olympic custom-built venues standing unused and neglected just a year after the Games. The roof of Fisht Stadium has been partly disassembled – the venue was used just twice, for the opening and closing ceremonies. Some of the companies that maintain the facilities are reportedly struggling to stay afloat as tourist numbers plummet, while at least two of the oligarchs who financed facilities have dumped their toxic properties on the state, leaving Russian taxpayers to foot the bill. While skiers still visit the slopes, few have visited the Olympic Village once expected to become a tourist attraction.

"Host cities were selling the message big-time to their citizens that hosting the Games will benefit the community immensely, state of the art facilities for years to come for the enjoyment of our people, when that's largely been a bunch of baloney – they sit there underused, and they don't even begin to reap the income of what it cost to build and maintain them," said Bob Barney, a professor at the University of Western Ontario's International Centre for Olympic Studies. "Cities now are gun-shy about imposing a huge public debt on their citizens, and the sports facilities are white elephants."

The pool of available cities that can host a Winter Olympics is already limited by climate and snow, and it has less profile than the much bigger Summer Olympics, the sister event featuring more sports, more competitors and more nations. Changes to the bidding process and efforts to reduce the cost of the Games are among the key issues being addressed by the IOC as part of Mr. Bach's "Agenda 2020," his road map for the future of the Olympics.

On Dec. 8 the IOC voted to reform the bidding process. It opened the door to multiple cities or countries hosting a single Olympic Games, which could limit the need for new venue construction. The IOC would cover some of the travel costs for delegates to bidding cities.

"There's some real re-evaluation going on under the new IOC president," said Dr. Barney. "They're not stupid, they know the bad press comes from the results of these Games financially – corruption, empty facilities. I think the IOC is beginning to wake up and become more responsible."

Beijing and Almaty are competing with modest budgets to host in 2022. Almaty's is estimated at $3.5-billion (U.S.), Beijing's at $3-billion – a far cry from the $40-billion spent on its 2008 Summer Games. This one vows to make use of some of those 2008 venues.

The IOC will select the 2022 host city on July 31 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Costs of previous Winter Olympics

Sochi 2014 - $51-billion

Vancouver 2010 - $6-billion

Turin 2006 - $3.6-billion

Salt Lake City 2002 - $2.9-billion

Nagano 1998 - $10-billion*

*Estimate – full costs never confirmed

All figures: U.S. current dollars

Source: AP

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