Almaty, Oslo and Beijing are official candidates to host the 2022 Olympic Games

The International Olympic Committee has registered Oslo (Norway), Beijing (China) and Almaty (Kazakhstan) as official candidates to host the 2022 Winter Games.

Previously Krakow (Poland), Stockholm (Sweden) and Lviv (Ukraine) have withdrawn their bids. The host city of the 2022 Games will be announced in Summer 2015 at the IOC Session, that will be held on 31 July in Malaysia.

The Norwegian capital Oslo has already hosted the Winter Games, but Beijing and Almaty have no such experience. However, Almaty together with Astana successfully hosted the Asian Winter Games in 2011.

As for Beijing, if the capital of China will win the right to host the 2022 Games, it will become the first city in the history to host both the summer and winter Games.