2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots and Leopard) was lacking personality. As a result of these issues, as well as being denied the copyright to Misha, Chizhikov declined to help when asked by the organizers of the 2014 Winter Olympics closing ceremony. Zoich (or ZOIЧ) was a proposed mascot for the XXII Winter Olympics, which took first place in the official online poll to select a mascot for the 2014 Sochi games. Despite being a popular Internet character, the committee chose not to introduce it to the final round of the voting. Upon introduction and until the end of the online voting, it was the most
Almaty bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics was the only contender to have never hosted the Olympics before. Almaty previously hosted the 2017 Winter Universiade. On 29 November 2011, Almaty was chosen to host the 2017 Winter Universiade. The city also co-hosted the 2011 Asian Winter Games with Astana, the capital since 1997. It can be seen as preparation for hosting the Winter Olympic Games in the future. Kazakhstan had been considering a bid for these games since 2011. On 17 August 2013, Almaty, the former capital city and still the largest city and financial centre of the country, confirmed their bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic