North America isn't exactly what you would call overdue. Bitove can also point to Canada's more successful hosting of the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary. China, though, has never staged an Olympics and by the time 2008 comes around it will be 20 years since the Far East last hosted a summer Olympiad. Seoul, South Korea, did a sterling job that year. Asia has to be next in line.
China offers a huge, untapped market for the Olympic movement.
However, the country's human rights record could become a major obstacle. Pro-Tibet groups are already vowing to disrupt Beijing's bid. At least the Chinese aren't alone in the demonstration stakes. Protesters from Canada traveled to IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the announcement of finalists and vociferously voiced their concern about the use of Adams Mine as a Toronto refuse dump. You have to solve this problem, not here in the IOC, you have to solve this problem in Toronto.