It was announced during a news conference today by the International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach that the cities of Oslo, Almaty and Beijing were confirmed as the candidates for the 2022 Winter Olympic games. They were chosen mainly on their ability to host the games said the IOC in a report.

Six cities  had been in the running for the games but, the cities of Stockholm, Krakow, and Lviv  withdrew their names before the choices were made. This only left three contenders for the 2022 games.

Lviv withdrew its bid because of the continuing turmoil that has embroiled Ukraine. Krakow ended its bid because of the 70% disapproval rating for the games in Poland. Stockholm had no choice but to quit their bid because their government refused to financially back the bid to host.

The same issue was faced by Switzerland and Germany, when neither of those countries could convince their governments to financially back a bid. Because of that, those two countries opted out even before an official campaign began.

Criteria that included accommodation, venues, doping control, safety and transport were used to determine the candidates. Oslo did poorly on public support for the games with 50% of its population in and around the city against having the games there.

Beijing scored high in that category, but scored poorly on environmental impact and venues.

Almaty scored poorly in several of the categories.  Those categories were its Olympic Village, plans for a media center, Internet policies, budget, environmental impact and policing.

Air quality standards in the last five years was also considered, both Beijing and Almaty scored poorly in that category.

A full detailed bid must be submitted to the committee by January and the winning bid will be selected in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in July of next year.

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