Beijing and Almaty officially on the start line for 2022

Beijing on Tuesday submitted its 2022 Winter Olympic Games official bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Beijing's submission came one day earlier before the deadline for candidate cities to present their candidature files to the IOC. Chinese Olympic Committee president Liu Peng handed Beijing's Guarantees to the IOC executive director for the Olympic Games Christophe Dubi on Tuesday morning.

Beijing 2022 Bid Committee president and mayor of Beijing Wang Anshun presented the bidding report to Jacqueline Barrett, who is in charge of the IOC candidate cities relations.

The bidding report, which contained 14 themes ranging from Beijing's vision, legacy, engagement, transport, accommodation, finance and sustainability, showcased Beijing's commitment for an athletes-oriented, sustainable, economical Winter Games.

Almaty submitted its bidding report on the same day.

Both Beijing and Almaty are strong candidates who will have a good competition between them in the race for hosting the 2022 Winter Games, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said on Tuesday.

Both Beijing and Almaty handed in their bidding reports on Tuesday to the IOC.

The IOC will send its Evaluation Commission to visit each city between February and March. The election of the 2022 host city by the IOC Session will take place in Kuala Lumpur of Malaysia on July 31, 2015.

To Bach, each bid has distinct characters.

"We have two very strong candidates with two very different approaches," said Bach. "We have Almaty as a winter sport center with many facilities already existing and a great tradition in winter sport for decades with world renowned sports facilities and we have Beijing with a vision to make winter sports accessible for hundreds of millions of people in Beijing and the region, so two really fascinating projects."

"It will be really good competition between these two candidates," he said.

The IOC will send its Evaluation Commission to visit each city between February and March. The Commission's report, highlighting the risks and opportunities of the candidate cities' projects, will be published prior to the IOC 2022 Briefing for IOC members which will take place in June.

The election of the 2022 host city by the IOC Session will take place in Kuala Lumpur of Malaysia on July 31, 2015.

Source:Xinhua