Olympics is a celebration of sport, not vanity fair: Kazakh expert

Only two cities remain in the race to host the Winter Olympics 2022: Kazakhstan's Almaty and China's Beijing. 

Many more cities began the race, but most of them have withdrawn citing the high cost of the Olympics and lack of public support. 

In case Kazakhstan wins the bid to host the Olympics 2022, the Games will be “thrifty”, the director of Alau Ice Palace in Astana Nail Nurov said, Tengrinews reports citing Vesti.kz.

"We have to formulate our bid something like this: "The Olympic Games in Almaty - the cheapest, thriftiest, smartest games," he said.

“What the Russians have done in Sochi is a serious problem,” he said, because by spending $50 billion on the Games, they raised the bar to “unbelievable organizational heights”. He said that the unofficial rule that every next Olympics should be better than the previous ones was the probable cause for Oslo, Munich, Vienna and Lvi dropping their bids to host the Games in 2022.

"Our games have to pass under the banner of strict economy. One of the instruments of this strategy may be the idea of holding our Olympic Games in both Almaty and Astana cities. This idea is not new and we’ve been through this during the Asian Games. And that experience can be safely called successful,” he said.

Judge for yourself, we won't have to spoil the high-mountain sporting complex Medeu by covering it with a roof for the Olympics, neither we will have to build a new skating rink. We can host the entire skating program, figure skating, curling, men's and women's hockey tournaments in Astana. One of the ceremonies too, opening or closing of the Games, can take place on Astana Arena,” Nurov explained.

Nurov said that the idea of hosting the Olympics in two cities would raise eyebrows because this would break the traditions and nobody had done so before. “But the world is changing. Look, the UEFA was not afraid to share the future European Championship between 16 sovereign states! And we are afraid to hold games in two cities?" Nurov stated.

It is worth noting that the distance between Astana and Almaty is about 1000km, which is about an hour and a half by plane for $200-500 or a little over 12 hours by train for $100.

The speaker said that the Olympic Games “should become a celebration of sport, not a vanity fair.”

He added that he had not doubts Kazakhstan would be able to build the necessary infrastructure and organize the event properly.

Nevertheless, there is still Beijing in the bidding to host the Olympics 2022. In addition, Nurov admitted that so far Kazakhstan could not put forward sportsmen in all of the winter sports. “Whom will the Kazakhstanis cheer for?” he wondered.
 
By Dinara Urazova