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OLYMPICS • The Olympics that no one seems to want is down to just two candidates.

Oslo became the latest city to drop its bid for the 2022 Winter Games after the Norwegian government rejected financial backing for the project on Wednesday amid concerns the games were too costly.

Oslo's exit leaves Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the only two contenders.

Oslo is the fourth city to pull out of a race that has been thrown into turmoil in the wake of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, where the overall price tag was put at $51 billion, scaring off politicians and taxpayers across Europe and leaving the International Olympic Committee with a major image crisis.

Oslo's fate was sealed after the ruling Conservative party failed to support financial guarantees for the bid. Lawmaker Trond Helleland said it was a split vote and the party could not propose that the government go ahead with the candidacy.

The junior partner in the minority coalition voted against the bid four months ago, and polls have shown that more than 50 percent of Norwegians are opposed to the bid.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg said there was not enough support to spend 35 billion kroner ($5.4 billion) on the Olympics.

"It's important to get broad support for such an expensive project and there is not enough to carry through such an expensive project," she told Norwegian NRK television. "Without enthusiasm, it's not natural to carry this through."

"The Olympics would have been great, they would have been fun but there are lots of other important matters that we have to deal with," Solberg added.

After the vote, the city of Oslo withdrew its application for government financial backing.

"I was very surprised, fed up and disappointed," Norwegian IOC member Gerhard Heiberg said. "I had hoped that we could have been successful and gone forward at least a few steps."

College football• The five wealthiest college football conferences have notified the NCAA of their proposals to provide more benefits to athletes under the new governance model that allows the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference to pass legislation without the support of the other Division I leagues.

The autonomy structure went into effect on Wednesday, which was also the first day for the power conferences to offer suggestions about what rules they want to implement. The NCAA board of directors in August passed a proposal to give autonomy to the five major conferences. The transition to the autonomy structure will happen in January.

Those conferences endorsed changes that would increase benefits to student-athletes, all of which have been touted by conference leaders for several years, including:

— Funding athletic scholarships that would cover the full cost of tuition.

— Guaranteeing multiyear scholarships for athletes.

— Lifetime scholarship guarantees that would allow former athletes to return to school at any time and complete their degrees.

— Providing long-term health care and insurance to former athletes.

The conferences have also said they will review the time demands for athletes.

The Pac-12 says presidents and chancellors will explore how to implement the proposed reforms at its board meeting Oct. 27, including by each institution, conference-wide action or among the five major conferences.

Any rule changes that occur would not start until the 2015-2016 academic year.