Stockholm withdraws bid to host 2022 Winter Olympics

Winter Olympics 2022

Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, is set to drop its bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, as said by the mayor on Friday.

“It is always nicer to say yes than no, but it is in our mandate to make tough decisions,” the centre-right mayor Sten Nordin from the Moderate Party said.

“This isn’t a no to other Winter Olympics in the future.” The project had already been rejected by two of the Moderates’ coalition partners, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats.

“Bidding for the Olympics in the current situation would entail too much speculation with taxpayers’ money,” Christian Democrat leaders Ewa Samuelsson and Erik Slottner said in a statement.

In November, the Swedish Olympic Committee submitted an application along with a preliminary bid, to the International Olympic Committee which had been greeted with skepticism by the country’s center right government.

“I think it’s good to host big events but we’re doubtful about the budget they’ve presented,” sports minister Lena Adelsohn said.

Sweden has previously hosted the Olympics on only one occasion, when they hosted the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. Stockholm, which is located on low-lying land far from the mountains, had planned to co-host the winter Olympics with Aare ski resort, which is about 500kms to the north west.

The election of the host city, will take place at the 127th International Olympic Committee’s session in Kuala Lumpur, which is scheduled to be held on 31st July, 2015.

The other candidate cities are Oslo, Beijing, Krakow (with events held in other Polish locations and in neighbouring Slovakia), Lviv (Ukraine) and Almaty (Kazakhstan).