With the exception of the bobsled track, many cities already have the facilities to host the Winter Olympics without having to spend $5-50 Billion. They need to stop picking places where it is warm in the winter. I am sure a lot of the $50 billion Russia spent did not end up in the bobsled track. More likely in Putin’s Swiss bank account.
Denver did not want the 1970 winter Olympics because they did not want to bankrupt the city. They already had the mountains and climate.
Several cold climate cities like Salt Lake and Calgary have been successful in hosting the Olympics. Even small towns like Lake Placid ,St. Moritz and Squaw Valley have done OK.
Structures can be built anywhere. However, you can not replace the Swiss/French/Austria Alps or the US/Canadian Rocky Mountains for cold weather and natural snow in February.
Not many cities have the facilities to host all these sports at the same time WITH massive TV coverage. Plus an Olympic village and tons of hotel space.
Not sure why you keep saying they need to stop being someplace warm, Sochi was the closest they’ve had to a warm weather Winter Games site and it was still plenty cold.
Denver might have had the mountains, but in 1970 that’s all they had.
Structures are where the expensive part of hosting an Olympics is. Nobody already has the ability to run 22 major sporting events simultaneously. They might have 1 good sized ice rink but for the Olympics you need to be able to run hockey, figure skating, and two different types of speed skating roughly simultaneously, 1 rink won’t cut it.
As long as there’s mountains nearby that will get snow (Vancouver really tested the concept of “nearby”) and room to build all the buildings you can run one. But then there’s the will to spend all that money.