Stockholm Drop 2022 Winter Olympics Bid

Stockholm have ended their bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics with the Swedish city’s ruling Moderate party saying on Friday that investing in the Games was not attractive enough.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said in November that six cities, including former summer Games hosts Beijing and Stockholm, had launched bids to stage the 2022 event.

“Arranging a Winter Olympics would mean a big investment in new sports facilities, for example for the bobsleigh and luge,” the Moderate party said in a statement.

“There isn’t any need for that type of that kind of facility after an Olympics.”

Norway capital Oslo, which hosted the 1952 Winter Olympics, is also among those in the running, along with Krakow in Poland, Kazakhstan’s Almaty and Ukraine’s Lviv.

“Although the calculations are well worked out, we estimate that revenues will likely be lower and costs higher than the investigation indicates,” said Stockholm city council chairman and finance commissioner Sten Nordin.

“With more time to the date of application, it is possible that finding other solutions might have been possible. Stockholm is a winter sports town and I am open to staging the Winter Olympics in the future,” he said.

“Unfortunately we are of the opinion that it’s not realistic to make a bid for the 2022 Olympics,” he later told Sveriges Radio.

Stockholm’s refusal to back an Olympic bid is reminiscent of the Italian government pulling out of a bid by Rome for the 2020 Olympics two years ago over similar financial fears.