For what it's worth - the IOC moves on without Boston on Friday in Kuala Lampur and will select between Almaty (formerly Alma-Ata), Kazakhstan and Beijing for the 2022 Winter Games. This is a choice they didn't want - but after Oslo and Stockholm (and others) pulled out of the running, that's who was left. The whole mess seems to have been a wake-up call for the IOC, precipitating the Agenda 2020 reforms designed to make hosting a little more manageable (but, based on our recent experience, still not manageable enough).
Beijing is pretty far from any actual snow, but if Sochi can do it, so can Beijing (with a little help from some high speed rail). A Beijing Winter Games will be a skating games, with the snow sports an afterthought (every Winter Games is one or the other at heart).
Almaty has a long history of winter sport, best known for the Medeo skating rink, where legendary tailwinds push behind speed skater's backs all the way around the track. Almaty was host to the 2011 Asian Winter Games - which isn't the Olympics, but at least there's some experience. Like Beijing, there's a fairly authoritarian government, so you're going to get an open-opposition free environment. Kazakhstan should have had plenty of money to pay for all this - until the price of oil collapsed.
I think I prefer Almaty here, but that Beijing is the favorite. My only problem with Almaty is that if they host the Games, they will have to enclose the Medeo rink. That's pretty much sacrilege in my world...might as well go touch up the Mona Lisa to fix that goofy smile.