World News – Add Krakow to the growing list of cities who do not want to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Polish city withdrew its bid this week after residents overwhelmingly voted against the plan, according to the Associated Press.
Now only four cities remain in the bidding process, and two of those may soon be ruled out — leaving only Kazakhstan and China as contenders.
Krakow had proposed co-hosting the games with neighboring Slovakia, but more than 70 percent of the voters in Krakow’s referendum said they did not want to host the event.
It is the latest city to reject the opportunity to host the games: Stockholm, Sweden, withdrew its bid in January citing cost; voters in Munich, Germany, rejected a proposal to host the games citing “greed” of the International Olympic Committee; and voters rejected a bid for Davos and St. Moritz to jointly hold the games.
The rash of rejections could be attributed to the rising cost of hosting the games.
The 2014 Olympics in Sochi, for example, ran up a bill of about $51 billion, while the 2008 Beijing Games cost nearly $40 billion.
Now only four countries remain as bidders to host the 2022 Winter Games.
The proposal to host in Oslo, Norway, faces steep opposition from voters and from one-half of the coalition government, while the city of Lviv, Ukraine, is considered unlikely due to political unrest in the country.
Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Beijing, China remain as the two cities which still seem to want to host the Winter Games.
Beijing is seeking to become the first city to host both the summer and winter Olympics after it hosted the Summer Games in 2008.
The IOC is set to meet in six weeks in Switzerland to select a short list of finalists.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By COLLEEN CURRY, abcnews.go.com
