The IOC announced Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing, and Oslo as the three finalists for the 2022 Winter Games Monday.
The decision was made at the IOC’s executive board meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. The move was widely expected, according to the AP, after three other cities – Krakow, Poland; Liviv, Ukraine, and Stockholm had previously withdrawn from contention.
Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Games, and would become the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics. It has proposed hosting Alpine events at a location 120 miles outside the Chinese capital. With the 2018 Winter Olympics to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2020 Summer Games to be held in Tokyo, it is reportedly unlikely the IOC would select an East Asian nation as a host city three times in a row.
Oslo hosted the 1952 Winter Games, but the Norwegian government has still not fully committed to hosting the Games, according to the AP. If awarded the 2022 Games, Oslo would become the fourth city to host two Winter Olympics, following in the footsteps of Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1932 and 1980; St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1928 and 1948; and Innsbruck, Austria, in 1964 and again in 1976 (a late switch to Innusbruck was made for the 1976 Games after Denver was awarded, then withdrew from hosting those Games).
Almaty, also known as Alma-Ata, was the capital of Soviet Kazakhstan as well as independent Kazakhstan from 1991 to 1997. It would be the first Central Asian nation to host an Olympics.
The IOC’s evaluation commission will visit each city next year, with the final decision scheduled to be announced on July 31, 2015.