Norway, IOC to meet to discuss failed 2022 Winter Olympics bid
Norwegian Olympic officials will meet with leaders of the International Olympic Committee later this month in Lausanne, Switzerland to discuss the failed bid by Oslo to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, the Associated Press reports.
Oslo dropped out of consideration for the games, saying they were concerned about the finances that came with hosting. It cost an estimated $51 billion to host the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
Bids from Stockholm, Sweden; Krakow, Poland; and Lviv Ukraine, were also dropped and voters in Switzerland and Germany rejected proposed bids.
There are now just two cities, Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, left in the race to host the games. Beijing is seeking to become the first city to host both summer and winter games, after hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics.
IOC president Thomas Bach has already said that the committee will not reopen the bidding process for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
"We will sit together and go through the experience that we had in Norway," Inge Andersen, secretary general of the Norwegian Olympic Committee said. "We have to make everything more transparent and much easier to understand. It's important to focus on how to reduce the cost of the management of the games, how to reduce the cost of bidding for the games and how to better communicate this."
Andersen said he hopes the meeting will help find way of improving the bidding process in an attempt win back future candidates who want to host the games.
The IOC will choose the 2022 Winter Olympics host city on July 31, 2015, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
- Scooby Axson
