北京申办2022年冬奥会成功机会有多大

When news arrived in November that Beijing was bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics, many observers in the Chinese capital briefly choked on their tea -- or was that the smog?

去年11月传出北京申办2022年冬季奥运会的消息时，在这座中国首都城市的许多观察人士都被口中的茶呛了一下（或者是因为雾霾？）。

A few years removed from hosting the Summer Olympics, with virtually no winter sports tradition to speak of and bad air that gets worse when the temperatures drop, China's capital seemed as likely a choice to host the Winter Games as Dubai or Bankok.

北京在几年前刚刚举办过夏季奥运会，而且实际上没什么说得上来的冬季体育运动传统，再加上气温下降时空气质量会更加糟糕，被选作冬运会举办地的可能性看起来就和迪拜或曼谷差不多。

Eight months later, the International Olympic Committee has named Beijing, which has proposed hosting the games in conjunction with the nearby city of Zhangjiakou, as one of the three finalists for the bid, along with Oslo in Norway and Kazakhstan's Almaty.

八个月之后，国际奥林匹克委员会(International Olympic Committee, 简称：国际奥委会)宣布，北京与挪威的奥斯陆及哈萨克斯坦的阿拉木图共同入围最后一轮候选名单。北京提出的方案是与附近城市张家口一起举办冬奥会。

What are Beijing's chances of actually winning the bid? Better than you might think.

北京真的胜出的可能性有多大？比你可能以为的要大。

The 2022 Winter Olympics has become known as the Olympics no one wants to host after a long list of candidates dropped their bids. Stockholm, Munich, two cities in Switzerland, Denver, Krakow and Lviv in Ukraine all pursued the idea of hosting the event to varying degrees but ultimately decided to withdraw themselves from consideration over the past few months -- leaving only the three finalists.

在一长串候选城市都放弃之后，2022年冬奥会已经成了有名的“谁都不想承办”的一届奥运会。瑞典的斯德哥尔摩、德国慕尼黑、瑞士两个城市、美国丹佛、波兰克拉科夫和乌克兰利沃夫都不同程度地寻求过主办这届冬奥会，但经过过去几个月的思考，它们最终都决定退出――只剩下最后一轮名单上的三个城市。

With the exception of Lviv, which cancelled its bid last week because of continuing political strife in Ukraine, most of the other drop-outs appear to have been frightened away by the specter of this year's Winter Games in Sochi, which emptied Russia's coffers to the tune of $51 billion and left little of value behind.

除了利沃夫以外，多数中途退出者似乎都被今年索契冬奥会给吓住了。这届冬奥会花掉了俄罗斯510亿美元之多，而并没有带来什么价值。利沃夫上周因乌克兰持续不断的政治冲突而放弃竞标。

Here's China Real Time's rundown of the arguments in favor of and against the remaining candidates:

以下是《中国实时报》专栏列出的入围候选城市的优势和劣势：

Almaty

阿拉木图

Pros: Has never hosted an Olympics before, has mountains nearby and claims to have already built many of the necessary facilities. Cons: The city of 1.5 million isn't all that far from Sochi, and 'Borat' effect notwithstanding, Kazakhstan doesn't top many lists of sexy tourist destinations. The city also may not being willing to lay out the piles of cash required to put on a modern Olympics. (If the city is picked as host, the budget will be 'many, many times' less than Sochi, a Kazahk Olympic Committee board member told Reuters in February.)

优势：之前从未举办过奥运会，附近有山，对外宣称已修建了很多必要设施。劣势：这个人口150万的城市距离索契不算太远，虽说有波拉特效应的帮助，但哈萨克斯坦在诸多旅游胜地名单上都榜上无名。这个城市可能也不会为举办一场现代化的奥运会而一掷千金。（一名哈萨克奥委会委员曾在2月份对路透社(Reuters)表示，如果该市被选为举办方，其预算会比索契少很多很多倍。）

Oslo

奥斯陆

Pros: Is in Europe (which hasn't hosted a Winter Games since Turin in 2006), has the right geography and plenty of oil money, would field a very competitive home team. Cons: Norway has hosted a Winter Olymipics in the relatively recent past (Lillehammer 1994). More importantly, it's not clear the city actually wants to host the games. Various polls put public support for the bid as low as 38%. 'I think the whole thing is crazy,' one 67-year-old Oslo resident told the Wall Street Journal in September. 'The whole country has to pay for a little pleasure.'

优势：地处欧洲（欧洲自2006年都灵冬奥会以来再也没举办过冬奥会），地理位置优越，拥有大量石油收入，有极具竞争力的东道主运动队。劣势：挪威在相对较近期的过去曾举办过冬季奥运会（1994年的利勒哈默冬奥会）。更重要的是，这个城市是否真正想举办冬奥会尚未可知。很多项调查显示，公众对申办冬奥会的支持率只有38%。一名67岁的奥斯陆居民曾在去年9月份对《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)说，他认为申办冬奥会简直就是发疯，整个国家要为这点快乐花很多钱。

Beijing/Zhangjiakou

北京/张家口

Pros: Lots of money. Cons: As documented by Bloomberg's Adam Minter, the chief argument against Beijing is the city's notoriously chewable air. Zhangjiakou, the city in Hebei where the alpine events would be held, boasts cleaner air, but it still hardly qualifies as pristine and is at its worst in the winter. Besides which, the 'mountains' of Hebei are pimple-sized when compared with those in previous host locations like Nagano and Salt Lake City. There's also the fact that the 2018 Winter Games are scheduled to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, which is only 670 miles from Beijing.

优势：有很多钱。劣势：正如彭博(Bloomberg)的明特(Adam Minter)所言，北京的最大劣势在于它严重的空气污染。将举办高山滑雪运动的张家口是河北省城市，空气质量较好，但也谈不上有多新鲜，冬季也是该市气候最差的季节。除此之外，与之前冬奥会举办地长野县、盐湖城相比，河北省的山都有点太小了。另外还有一点，2018年冬季奥运会计划在韩国平昌郡举办，距离北京只有670英里（合1078公里）。

All that said, it's hard to underestimate the power of a bulging purse -- and if the 2008 Summer Games proved anything, it's that Beijing is willing to spend what it takes to put on an impressive Olympics. Beijing could also dangle the carrot of Zhang Yimou, the famous film director whose authoritarian choreography for the 2008 Olympics opening ceremonies was impressive enough to nab a Peabody award. (Just imagine what he could do with thousands of People's Liberation Army soldiers on ice skates.)

尽管如此，目前难以估计中国不断增强的财政实力的真实情况。不过如果将2008年夏季奥运会视为例证的话，可以得出的结论就是为了举办一届令人印象深刻的奥运会，北京愿意尽其所能支出资金。北京还可以利用张艺谋来帮助申奥。这位中国著名导演一手执导的2008年奥运会开幕式令人印象深刻，足以获得皮博迪奖(Peabody award)。（设想一下张艺谋执导数千名解放军脚踩滑冰鞋的样子。）

An announcement on the Beijing government's English news website claimed a 90% support rate for the city's latest Olympic bid. It's not clear how that figure was determined, but if residents are in favor of the idea, it might have to do with secondary benefits promised. The capital's finance bureau has said it plans to invest close to $50 billion yuan ($8 billion) in efforts to reduce fine particulate matter in the air ahead of the games. If that pledge holds, residents of the city could end up winning no matter how the event turns out.

北京政府英文新闻网站上的一份公告称，北京此次申办冬奥会获得了90%的支持率。目前还不清楚这个数据如何而来，但是如果北京人支持申奥，那可能是因为他们考虑到了奥运会可以带来的其他有利影响。北京市财政局此前已经表示，在冬奥会之前，计划投资近人民币500亿元（合80亿美元）来减少空气中的颗粒物。如果政府兑现承诺，那么无论冬奥会办的成不成功，北京人都是赢家。