The 2022 Winter Olympics represent something of a watershed moment for the IOC. The withdrawal of Oslo as a candidate city this month has left the organisation with just two cities to choose from for hosting rights – Beijing, and Almaty in Kazakhstan. Both cities represent differing challenges to the IOC, and both bear a level of political criticism which makes them wholly unattractive propositions.

Of course, all of this comes off the back of the hugely contentious decisions to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cup’s to Russia and Qatar respectively. With the human rights atrocities, corruption and bribery now being highlighted in Qatar, the integrity of FIFA is at an all-time low. Whilst the IOC may not be at such a low ebb, they are faced with a tough position.

Of the two cities, Almaty remains the underdog, and surely for good reason. Their pedigree in winter sports is limited – just two medals in the past four editions of the games – but this is the least of their problems. Despite being a ‘Presidential Republic’, the country has had just one president since 1989, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was most recently elected to a 5-year term in 2011, receiving 96% of the vote. During this election, international monitors cited a number of cases of ballot box-stuffing, voter intimidation and an overall lack of transparency. The Organisation for Security and co-operation in Europe (OSCE), received multiple reports of people being pressured to vote, and government officials were seen intimidating voters in universities, hospitals and military encampments.

So whilst the notion of democracy remains rather flawed in Kazakhstan, this is not the end of the problems. According to campaign group Human Rights Watch, Kazakhstan’s record on human rights is “poor” and that “torture remains common in places of detention”. They added that this deterioration in human rights has seen “authorities cracking down on free speech and dissent through misuse of overly broad laws.” The freedom of expression and the arrest and detention of government critics remains a severe issue, which keeps in place Nazarbayev’s notion of a ‘Presidential Republic.’

In light of this, Beijing now looks to be the favourite to host the games, a controversial position for the IOC in the wake of the criticism of the awarding of Beijing the 2008 Summer Games and Sochi the 2014 Winter Games. Of course, the human rights issues which surround China are fairly common knowledge. According to Human Rights Watch, “the government remains an authoritarian one-party state… It places arbitrary curbs on expression, association, assembly, and religion; prohibits independent labour unions and human rights organizations; and maintains Party control over all judicial institutions.” In particular, censorship of the press and intolerance of political opposition remain major issues. When awarding the 2008 Games to Beijing, the state pledged for completely open and free media access during the Games, which did not materialise.

On top of this, Beijing’s suitability for hosting a Winter Games remains debatable. Air pollution, an issue which caused much concern during the 2008 Games, has since worsened. The air pollution is more dangerous during winter than summer, making it an even greater concern. As of February 26th, Beijing hit a dangerous particulate concentration of 537 (a rate of 301-500 is marked as hazardous). Moreover, Beijing doesn’t actually sit within 120 miles of a usable ski mountain. This sits in stark contrast with Oslo, the last candidate city to withdraw from the process.

Despite being the most successful country in the history of the Winter Games and seemingly the perfect host, Norway withdrew from the process on October 1st after the Conservative Party withdrew their support for the bid, meaning a parliamentary majority would not be reached – an issue you’d imagine would not affect the Kazakh and Chinese bids. When asking why such opposition mounted to a bid in Norway, you only need to look at the previous edition of the Games. The Sochi Games in 2014 cost a staggering $51 billion. Compare this to the 2012 London Summer Games, which cost $14 billion and the 2010 Vancouver Games, the final bill of which reached $6.4 billion. In response to this, Oslo set a conservative estimate of less than $6 billion for their bid, but still they could not convince a sceptical public and political spectrum.

It appears the allure of hosting major sporting tournaments has diminished in recent years, certainly in democratic states. The common argument of job creation is one which is losing its credibility. Whilst according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Games typically create anywhere from 50,000 to 300,000 jobs, most of those jobs are temporary and go to people who already have work. For instance, only 10% of the 48,000 jobs created by the London Olympics went to previously unemployed people. The demands of governing bodies also take the shine off hosting rights. Whilst everyone knows the ‘brown-envelope’ culture within FIFA, it may come as a surprise to see the IOC’s demands. The staggering 7,000 page list of demands issued by the IOC included meetings with the king, VIP cocktail parties and dedicated traffic lanes, as revealed by newspaper Norwegian newspaper, ‘VG’.

Indeed, hosting the Games may only make economic sense these days for developing economies that can benefit from the very specific kind of boost that an Olympics can offer. It’s worth noting that prior to the withdrawal of Oslo, potentially strong bids from St Moritz, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany, were dropped after being rejected by voters in referendums. We now look as though we are heading for a future where the majority of countries bidding for global sports tournaments will be those states lacking in human rights. Where democracies will face the scrutiny of citizens and political opposition over the viability of hosting such an event, states such as Kazakhstan and China do not share such a problem. These states, often newly developed economic powers, are looking for ways to make their mark on a global scale, and have the money to do it – look at Qatar’s 2022 World Cup Success and Russia’s recent awarding of the Winter Olympics, World Cup and Formula One race all in the space of just a couple of years. It remains to be seen which city -between Almaty or Beijing – the IOC decide is most in keeping with, or rather the least in contrast with, the Olympic spirit.