Abortive attempt at 2022 Winter
Olympics in Krakow,
Poland.
In the referendum on May 25, 2014
citizens of Krakow overwhelmingly voted against hosting the
Winter Olympic Games in the city in 2022. The turnout was just
36 percent and 70 percent of the vote proved negative. In
consequence the local government abandoned the project and
decided to withdraw its bid for the 2022 Olympics.
Winter
sports and Krakow.
Poland’s second biggest city doesn’t claim to be an
winter sports destination per se. Nevertheless Krakow in some way is the gateway
to the northernmost Carpathians, Poland’s Beskidy and
Tatry mountains, dotted
with ski resorts. And its winter sports credentials are as good - or better - as
such Winter Olympics hosts as Italy’s Turin or Russia’s Sochi. At least Krakow’s
native ice hockey team, Cracovia, has managed to be the country’s
serial champions.
A bid for
the Olympics, short story.
Krakow’s bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2022 had
gained support of the Polish government together with required guarantees. Also
the Slovakian government had backed the Krakow candidature as competition in
some disciplines are planned to take place in Slovakia, namely the Jasna ski
resort.
The rival applicants were originally Norway’s Oslo, Kazakhstan’s Almaty, Ukraine’s Lviv,
China’s Beijing, and Sweden’s Stockholm.
Stockholm has dropped its bid in January 2014.
Krakow Arena can seat some 15,000 at an ice hockey match.
Proposed locations of the Krakow Olympics
The opening and closing ceremonies were planned in
the city of Krakow. Winter Olympic disciplines were supposed to be allocated among
three areas called ‘zones’, two of them in Poland (Krakow Zone and Tatry-Zakopane Zone), and the third one in Slovakia (Tatry-Jasna Zone). Hockey
tournaments as well as other ice disciplines - figure skating, speed skating,
short track speed skating, and curling - would take place in the Krakow Zone as
well as bobsleighs, luge, and skeleton (a brand-new sliding
center being planned in the city of Myslenice 30 kilometers
south of Krakow).
Slovakia’s Tatry-Jasna Zone would get alpine skiing. Other sports would be
competed in the Tatry-Zakopane Zone.
Accordingly, the participants would live in three
Olympic Villages situated in Krakow, in the town of
Zakopane, and in Slovakia’s
town of Liptovsky Mikulas.
Wisla Krakow football arena next to the city's vast Blonia
common may be turned into a venue for women's ice hockey.
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