The International Olympic Committee officially opened up the two-year, three-phase bidding process for hosting the 2022 Winter Games Thursday, with many cities already declaring intentions of bringing the event home.
Oslo, Norway immediately threw its hat into the proverbial ring and is expected to be a strong contender, while Poland and Slovakia are expected to send in a joint bid soon, and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych called for four cities to prepare proposals for the Games.
Other cities considering a bid are Almaty, Kazakhstan, which helped host the 1997 Asian Winter Games; Sarajevo, which hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics; Munich, which hosted the Summer Games in 1972 and lost in its bid for the 2018 Winters to Pyeongchang, South Korea; and Stockholm, which hasn’t hosted the Olympics in more than a century.
American cities like Denver, Reno, Bozeman, and Salt Lake City all expressed interest in hosting the 2022 Games. But the USOC has decided to focus on the Summers in 2024 and recently whittled down its list of potential hosts from thirty to ten, including Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
All bids are due in by November 14, so that the IOC can look them over before a meeting at the headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland this December. Finalists will be determined next summer, and those cities will be evaluated early in 2015 before the final vote on July 31, 2015.
