Ukraine Bails, 2022 Winter Olympics Now Down to Beijing and Two Other Candidates

Another one bites the dust: News earlier this week indicates Lviv, Ukraine has become the third of 6 potential hosts to withdraw its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, leaving Beijing as one of three still vying to host the games (and the only one that we believe has a chance in Hell).

We decided last February that The 'Jing has this one wrapped up, so you speculators better damn go off and buy a condo in Zhangjiakou before it's too late.

The other two potential hosts – Olso, Norway and Almaty, Kazakhstan – are just fine places for winter sports but as we pointed out in an earlier post, Oslo's citizens want nothing to do with blowing shitloads on money on a big sports party. Almaty is, well, flush with oil cash and can probably grease IOC palms with the best of the lot in China, but its in the middle of nowhere and frankly we are total bandwagoneers and would love to see Beijing become the first city in history to have hosted both a winter and a summer Olympics.

And hey, what the hell, with the pollution problem scheduled to be licked by 2030, what a better legacy to leave behind for our fair city than tons of new sporting facilities? I mean I for one would love to have a luge nearby, and I just can't go through another Beijing winter without access to a decent curling sheet.

But before you start booking your hotels for 2022 (or getting your panties in a bunch to launch a protest), we're still a year away from an IOC decision, which is due a year from this month.

We may not have snow, we may not have clean air, but gosh darn it we've got the will to do it, the citizen support, and lots of leftover mascots that can easily be repurposed for 2022. So get ready for the merchandising, folks ... as beginning next year, Beijing Olympic fever will once again take this city by storm.