Budget of Winter Olympics in Almaty cut by $550 million

Kazakhstan has introduced 8 changes to the bid to host the Winter Olympic Games in 2022 in Almaty, Tengrinews reports citing Vesti.kz.

The 24th Winter Olympics will take place either in Kazakhstan's Almaty or in Chinese Beijing.

The changes have been made after the visit of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) representatives to Almaty.

Skiing competitions will not take place at Shymbulak Skiing Resort as planned previously. Almatau Skiing Resort, a cheaper spot, will host the skiing competitions instead. Freestyle and snowboard competitions will take place at Ak Bulak instead of Tau Park. These changes enable the Olympic Games organizing committee of Almaty to avoid high cost repair and construction works at Shymbulak and Tau Park. Paralympics competition in sledge hockey will also change its location from the Olympic Ice Palace to Baluan Sholak Sports Palace. In addition, the number of rooms at the mountain Olympic Village will be cut down from 1000 to 350.

Since Shymbulak won’t be under the competition spotlight, there is no need to build a media center in the mountains. As a result of the changes introduced by the committee, the budget was cut by $100 million and the expenses on infrastructure were decreased by $450 million. However, the Committee has not provided the final budget of the Olympics yet.

These changes, according to the member of the Almaty-2022 committee Andrey Kryukov, will make the planned Olympic Games in Kazakhstan more compact than those in Beijing. In comparison, some of the Olympic venues in Beijing are located 190 km away from each other.

But the final decision on which city will have the honor to host the 2022 Winter Olympics will be announced during the annual ICO meeting in Kuala Lumpur on July 31.

By Gyuzel Kamalova