Beijing Games Cost $70 Billion; No New Paralympic Disciplines; Mongolia 2040?

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$70 Billion for Beijing Olympics?

Spending to prepare Beijing for the 2008 Olympics may have totaled a staggering $70 billion, Bloomberg Business Week reports.

The revelation, if accurate, is double initial estimates of the costs for infrastructure and venues needed for the Games.

Bloomberg says the $70 billion figure is the amount of public debt that went into financing Games-related projects.

Substantial portions of that debt are coming due, a reckoning that could impact the Chinese economy says the report.

"The Olympics was a spectacular event for China, but now Beijing has to deal with the hangover because of high borrowing to finance the event," Bloomberg quotes Victor Shih, Northwestern University professor who is an expert on local government finances in China.

The report indicates that the refinancing some of this debt will come at a cost, due to higher interest rates for new bonds. Bloomberg says there are concerns that local governments may not be able to pay some of the debt.

The report says the city of Beijing had total debts of $58 billion at the end of 2010. There is no indication as to how much of that is Olympics-related. The Central Government is said to be the ultimate guarantor of 60 percent of the Beijing debt.

No New Disciplines for 2014 Paralympics

The International Paralympic Committee tells Around the Rings there will be no new disciplines at the Sochi Winter Games following the organizing committee’s rejection of para-snowboarding last week.

"It would have meant they would have needed a lot more resources," IPC media manager Eva Werthmann told ATR.

"They evaluated our request, and they came back to us and said ‘Listen, we’re really sorry, but we cannot do it.’ It was really the decision of Sochi 2014."

Efforts made Thursday by ATR to reach the organizing committee have so far been unsuccessful.

Next up for para-snowboarding is an application to be included at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang.

This time around, its fate rests with the IPC itself.

Whereas para-snowboarding applied as a discipline of alpine skiing for Sochi, the World Snowboard Federation is seeking its acceptance as an altogether new sport from 2018 onward.

IPC executives will make that decision, according to Werthmann, by the end of 2012.

In the meantime, only a pair of biathlon events – one men’s and one women’s – will make their debut at the Sochi Paralympics.

Mongolia Sees Olympic Bid

Mongolia wants to host an Olympics decades down the line.

On Thursday, the country’s president Tsakhia Elbegdorj met with IOC president Jacques Rogge, and Elbegdorj floated the idea of staging the Games in 2040.

"Mongolians have organized horse racing, wrestling and archery for hundreds of years," he was quoted by Xinhua news agency. "In another word, sports are very close [to the] lifestyle of Mongolians."

First though, Mongolia will bid for the 2017 East Asian Games and then the 2022 Asian Games. Each would take place in the capital and largest city of Ulan Bator.

Mongolia also plans to organize a quadrennial national games.

"Having national games will lay down the basis for having Olympic champions," Rogge said. "I believe your country will achieve this goal."

Turkey Withdraws Deaflympic Bid

Turkey will not bid for the 2013 Deaflympics, instead opting for the 2017 edition.

The move came because Turkey is staging the 2013 Mediterranean Games, and officials thought the two events would divide attention.

"We also thought that Mediterranean Games could steal all the interest," said Oktay Aktas, head of the Turkish Sports Federation for the Deaf.

"We made our new application last week and it was accepted by the Deaflympic Committee."

Greece was scheduled to host the 2013 Deaflympics but announced earlier in the year it would be unable to do so due to the country’s massive debt crisis.

Written and reported by Ed Hula, Ed Hula III and Matthew Grayson

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