The International Olympic Committee (IOC) today released its evaluation report on the 2014 Olympic Winter Games prepared by the IOC's Evaluation Commission for those Games. The report was written following the Commission's visits to the three Candidate Cities vying to host the XXII Olympic Winter Games in 2014 - Sochi (Russian Federation), Salzburg (Austria) and PyeongChang (Republic of Korea).?

Technical Analysis

The report is a technical analysis of the three Candidate Cities, which is sent to the IOC members ahead of the final vote, which will take place on 4 July 2007 during the 119th IOC Session in Guatemala City. The Commission, chaired by IOC Vice-President Chiharu Igaya - a former Olympic silver medallist in slalom - spent four days in each Candidate City (see dates below) to conduct on-site analyses and assess each City's ability to stage the Olympic Winter Games.

Visits

The dates of the visits to each Candidate City were:

PyeongChang: 14-17 February 2007

Sochi: 20-23 February 2007

Salzburg: 14-17 March 2007

Verbal Report

The Evaluation Commission will give a final verbal presentation to the 119th IOC Session in Guatemala City on 4 July 2007 following the presentations of the three Candidate Cities and preceding the vote for the election of the Host City of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in 2014.

Process

The election in Guatemala City will be the culmination of a process, which began on 31 May 2005, when the IOC asked for National Olympic Committees to nominate cities as candidates for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. This resulted in seven Applicant Cities, namely Sochi (Russian Federation), Salzburg (Austria), Jaca (Spain), Almaty (Kazakhstan), PyeongChang (Republic of Korea), Sofia (Bulgaria) and Borjomi (Georgia) ?, being put forward and answering the Applicant City questionnaire. Their replies were studied by an IOC Working Group which produced a report for the IOC Executive Board. Based on this report, three of the seven cities were selected by the IOC's Executive Board as Candidate Cities at its meeting on 22 June 2006. The remaining candidates have all now produced a Candidature File based on the 17 different themes of the IOC's 2014 Candidature Procedure and Questionnaire for 2014, which, in addition to the Evaluation Commission's report, will allow the IOC members to make their final decision.

(Credit: IOC. Click here for further information.)