Stockholm drops 2022 Olympic bid after vote

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Stockholm has dropped out of the race to host the 2022 Winter Olympics after the city council refused to back the bid for financial reasons.

Regina Kevius, the mayor in charge of sports events, says organizing the games involves “a big investment” and “there isn’t any need for that kind of facility after an Olympics.”

Stockholm, which hosted the Summer Games in 1912, had been bidding to become the first city to hold both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

Friday’s decision leaves five cities still in contention: Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing; Krakow, Poland; Lviv, Ukraine; and Oslo, Norway.

The bids were submitted to the International Olympic Committee in November. The IOC will select the host city in 2015.

Stockholm’s bid had already been considered a longshot because it proposed to host Alpine ski events in the northern Swedish resort of Are, more than 600 kilometers (400 miles) away from the capital.