The IOC votes have been cast and (to no one’s great surprise) Beijing will be hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics – the first city to hold both the summer and winter games, all the more an exceptional triumph due to the fact that there is almost zero naturally occurring snow.

If you ignore that, and the human rights abuse of recent years (unlikely), it’s worth noting that Beijing does actually have some history with snowboarding: the Air & Style contest series has had a stop in the Bird’s Nest stadium for a while now. Maybe the recently-introduced Olympic big air event might take off in 2022?

Either way, it’s safe to say that we were neither surprised or particularly stoked by this morning’s announcement, bizarrely made by Jonathon Edwards of triple jump fame, just another farcical chapter in the Olympics’ recent history. At the very least it was confirmed that Sepp Blatter was not present at the vote today, one can only assume because of Kuala Lumpar’s extradition treaties. Sigh…