ok, let me elaborate. yet again. beijing. is located on a latitude that's a) close to russia, b) close to russia. changchun, a city that's a whopping (gasp) 370 kilometres away managed to host the 2007 asian winter games. if you hadn't noticed, the distance from toronto to montreal is around 600 kilometres, and yet the climate difference is MAYBE one degree. tops. if changchun has a climate that can support winter games, then beijing can obviously have a cold enough climate to hold a winter olympics. don't forget about geography. vancouver has a coastal climate. come february, they'll still be in the single-digit positives. beijing is inland, and will be much colder (around single-digit negatives) than vancouver. granted, a lot of events will be held in whistler, where it's much colder, but take this into consideration. innsbruck, austria held the winter games twice. their average february temperature? two degrees higher than beijing. but then you'll say, "oh, austria just has a lot of mountains, beijing couldn't possibly support skiing." if you said that, you'd be dead wrong. beijing ski resort, anyone? and I quote: The resort itself boasts of 8 trails for beginners, intermediate and advanced skiers, and the first Halfpipe of international standard as well as the China first Mogul's advanced trail. that sound pretty sad? well, how about this? a full list, just for you. Lianhuashan alone occupies around, oh, 12000 sq. metres of snow, and around, oh, 80 square kilometres of land to work with. do they know how to construct world class facilities? they hired canadians and germans to design an international-standard half-pipe. I'm sure they can install other tracks as well. considering the speed at which they're building the stadiums (and the whole city in general), it is NOT unreasonable to think that beijing could host a winter olympics.
