One of the strangest Olympic bidding races in recent memory came to a surprising end Friday when Beijing, which staged the Summer Games seven years ago, was awarded the rights to the 2022 Winter Games, setting up the Chinese capital to become the first city to host both versions of the Games in more than a century of Olympic history.

Beijing’s victory was not the stunning part; given the commercial success of the 2008 Games, it was seen as a heavy favorite. What resonated was Beijing’s tiny margin of victory over the upstart bid from Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Beijing received 44 votes from International Olympic Committee delegates meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while Almaty received 40, a strong total indicating just how conflicted voters were over whether to give the Games to a country with plenty of resources but virtually no winter sports history, or to send them to Central Asia for the first time in a still-developing former Soviet republic.

Ultimately, the voters opted for familiarity, even if it may end up costing the event some authenticity. While Almaty’s bid highlighted the abundant mountains and plentiful snow that surround the city, Beijing’s plan relied on an extensive artificial snow-making operation and a new high-speed train project that, organizers said, will link the city with clusters of sites in the mountains as far as 100 miles away.