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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Krakow's bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics has taken a new blow, with a survey showing that a majority of Poles oppose the project.
A telephone poll by the IBRiS HomoHomini center found that 58 percent are against the Krakow bid.
In the survey of 1,100 adults, only 31 percent were in favor. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.
Krakow residents are scheduled to vote in a May 25 referendum on whether they support the games.
The poll results come two weeks after the Krakow bid leader, Jagna Marczulajtis-Walczak, resigned following allegations her husband offered money to journalists in return for favorable stories. She was replaced by Krakow's deputy mayor, Magdalena Sroka.
Bid leaders say the poll came before Krakow began its promotion campaign to show the benefits of the games.
Krakow, which proposes holding Alpine ski events across the border in Slovakia, is competing against bids from Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing; Lviv, Ukraine; and Oslo.
The International Olympic Committee executive board will select a short list of finalists at a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, in July. The host city will be chosen by the full IOC on July 31, 2015, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Krakow is not the only bid in difficulty. Lviv's candidacy is in limbo because of the crisis in Ukraine, while Oslo faces a lack of public support and has yet to secure government financial backing.
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