Intro:

The Kazakh city of Almaty, Beijing in China and Oslo in Norway were declared on Monday (7th July) as the three official candidate cities to host the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Script:

SOUNDBITE (English) Thomas Bach, IOC President:

"The executive board was impressed by the legacy plans of each of the three cities and will continue to support any future candidate for host city in developing them further. This support with involve the transfer of knowledge as well as financial support. In this respect, it was good to see each of the bidding cities understood the difference between the Olympic Games budget and the long-term infrastructure and investment budget, from which the population benefits for decades."