Kazakhstan?

[Faster]

Kazakhstand wants to bid for the Winter Olympics now too, god they are coming out of the woodwork, whats next Kenya 2014?

[baron-pierreIV]

I told you -- thinking about the Winter Games for the slopes of Mauna Kea in Hawaii isn't too far off.

[SOlympiadsW]

wow.....looks like 2014 is going to be interesting lol

[Mikel]

This is absurd. How many inhabitans has Almaty? Has Kazakhstan any tradition in Winter Sports? Has Almaty any infraestructure for skiing??  :Oo:

[hektor]

Almaty has 1,300,000 inhabitants.

The main resort in the Tian Shan mountains is Medeo.

At least with Almaty and Sofia bidding that makes two 1 million + cities bidding.

[stryker]

This is a surprise indeed.  In another thread a while back, I speculated on future bids from some of the ex-Soviet Republics outside of Russia (Ukraine, Kazahkstan, etc.)  I never thought it would be this soon though.  My guess is that in the cases of Kazakhstan and Georgia is that 2014 will be a test run for a more serious bid in the future.

Yes, Kazakhstan does have some history in the Winter Olympics although not much.  The country took home two bronze medals at the Nagano Olympics.  At Salt Lake City, Kazakhstan fielded a women's hockey team.

[Kenadian]

I believe that Kazakhstan has some form of speed skating tradition.

[hektor]

Almaty

Page on Medeo and its (huge) skating rink

[hektor]

The ski resort is Shymbulak.

Shymbulak

[Faster]

Kazakhstan is not that bad off as a country, they are hard working people with a lot of tradition. It would be interesting to see Kazakhstan host a winter olympics, though my guess would be around 2026, but than again PC came from no where to come second maybe the IOC will take a chance on a place like Sarajevo, or Almaty

[baron-pierreIV]

Kazakhstan is not that bad off as a country, they are hard working people with a lot of tradition. It would be interesting to see Kazakhstan host a winter olympics, though my guess would be around 2026, but than again PC came from no where to come second maybe the IOC will take a chance on a place like Sarajevo, or Almaty

Yeah, but remember the IOC already has experience with Seoul; and Korea has the track record of 2002 as well.

[Guest ryan04]

well 2014 will have an intesting race

[Mikel]

I have see the photos of Almaty and it seems a beautiful city, maybe we can see Almaty 2026 Winter Olympic Games!!! ::  :love:

[stryker]

A big problem I see with a Kazakhstan bid is the country is somewhat unstable politically.

[Faster]

A big problem I see with a Kazakhstan bid is the country is somewhat unstable politically.

its more stable than most of its neighbores, and has had else problems than most of them aswell, it has a ways to go, but its on the right road more so than other former soviet republics

[stevie]

I’m supporting Almaty 2014. Kazakstan all ready has 1 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals

[Sir Rols]

Yeah, out of all the former Soviet central Asian republics, Kazakhstan has the best winter tradition. It would be reeaaallly interesting to see it host, but I do tend to think it's a little way further off until they do.

[hektor]

It seems that the project has started some time ago.

Hint: when you go to the IOC Library web site, in Lausanne, there is a list of the new acquisitions of the Library for the month of June 2005, you find the following reference.

Kim, Viktor G. – Bidding for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Almaty, Kazakhstan : feasibility and strategy / Viktor G. Kim ; tutor Jean-Loup Chappelet. – Almaty : [s.n.], 2003. – 98 p. : ill. ; 30 cm. – Master exécutif en management des organisations sportives, MEMOS VI (2003)

CIO Libre-accès Candidatures * cote: CIO MA 21026 * classif.: 730.22 ALM

It seems that Mr. Viktor Kim's Master thesis in 2003 was about the Almaty 2014 bid...

:shocked:

Lucky guy...

Can someone get this report... feasibility and strategy, that should be interesting reading.  

[thatsnotmypuppy]

Almaty expressed interest for the 2002 Games - so this is their second bid, however they withdrew prior to the cut off date -

From AAFLA

Quote -

'On 24-25 January 1995, the IOC Electoral College will make a pre-selection of four (4)

cities from among the 9 bidding for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The

presentation order before the IOC Electoral College has been announced as follows:

Sion (SUI), Salt Lake City (USA), Poprad-Tatry (SVK), Jaca (ESP), Sochi (RUS),

Graz (AUT), Ostersund (SWE), Québec City, Quebec (CAN), Tarvisio (ITA), and

Almaty (KAZ). The final selection will occur at the 104th IOC Session in Budapest,

Hungary on 16 June 1995, after the four finalists have given their presentations to the

IOC Session. It should be noted that the IOC recently reported that only nine cities

handed over their candidature files for 2002 by the 18 August 1994 deadline. Almaty

(KAZ) has withdrawn as a candidate city.'

[baron-pierreIV]

Almaty expressed interest for the 2002 Games - so this is their second bid, however they withdrew prior to the cut off date -

From AAFLA

Quote -

'On 24-25 January 1995, the IOC Electoral College will make a pre-selection of four (4)

cities from among the 9 bidding for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The

presentation order before the IOC Electoral College has been announced as follows:

Sion (SUI), Salt Lake City (USA), Poprad-Tatry (SVK), Jaca (ESP), Sochi (RUS),

Graz (AUT), Ostersund (SWE), Québec City, Quebec (CAN), Tarvisio (ITA), and

Almaty (KAZ). The final selection will occur at the 104th IOC Session in Budapest,

Hungary on 16 June 1995, after the four finalists have given their presentations to the

IOC Session. It should be noted that the IOC recently reported that only nine cities

handed over their candidature files for 2002 by the 18 August 1994 deadline. Almaty

(KAZ) has withdrawn as a candidate city.'

I remember reading somewhere that some mayor of a mountainous Kurdish town (Baskrit) in northern Iraq was heard to mutter, just before he was assassinated by Uday's henchmen:  we will bid for 2014; if not 2018...; and then he had his death rattle.

Why was this not included in that Official report?  That almost amounted to an Unofficial bid, and as such, deserved immortality in Olympic annals.

[thatsnotmypuppy]

It's a bit like that.  I could post on ATR and say Canberra is bidding for 2014 and they'd list it somewhere as official...

If a city withdraws prior to the cut off date, then they didnt actually bid...

[Guardian]

Again, to me, one problem about Kazakhstan's ambitions for trying to get any Olympic Games is that it has NO active IOC members to support it. Geez, even NORTH KOREA has one IOC member amongst the 116-member list.

[LuigiVercotti]

This is the 2014 version of Tashkent's bid, or perhaps more appropriately the 2014 version of Poprad-Tatry. No one in their right mind, and even those IOC members out of theirs, really would consider Almaty a viable host. No matter how relatively stable Kazakhstan is as a country it is still a Central Asian Republic, a region renowned for corruption, terrorism, pseudo-Soviet successor regimes and thrid world standard infrastructure.

As for Kazakh winter Olympic heriatge, I vaguely recall that several of the old Soviet era biathlete and cross-country gold medallists came from there, pre-1992. Anyone care to confirm this (Wallechinsky will know...too lazy to go to my copy )

[Mikel]

Yeah, but I would like to see Kazakhstan hosting an Olympic Games in the 2020's, a "new frontier" for the Winter Games. ::

[Guardian]

Yeah, but I would like to see Kazakhstan hosting an Olympic Games in the 2020's, a "new frontier" for the Winter Games. ::

It seems that the 2014 race is going to be the "battle of the new frontiers" anyway. ::