The list of candidate cities to host the 2014 Winter Olympics has been reduced to three.
The International Olympic Committee announced Thursday that Salzburg, Austria, PyeongChang, South Korea and Sochi, Russia are the final three candidates.
There were seven cities competing to host the 2014 Winter Games. Jaca, Spain, Almaty, Kazakhstan, Sofia, Bulgaria and Borjomi, Georgia were also candidates.
The selection of the three finalists was based on a study and report on the candidate cities submitted in February. The study and report were made by a working group comprising Olympic experts who made a technical assessment of each applicant city. The selection by the IOC executive board of Salzburg, PyeongChang and Sochi was unanimous.
Salzburg and PyeongChang were also finalists to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, which were awarded in 2003 to Vancouver and Whistler.
The final decision on the host city for the 2014 Winter Olympics will be made by the full IOC membership in July 2007.
Jack Poole, chair of the board of VANOC, offered his congratulations to the three finalists.
"On behalf of everyone associated with Vancouver 2010, we congratulate the 2014 candidate cities PyeongChang, Salzburg and Sochi on reaching the challenging and important next step in their bids to host the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and we wish them luck in the next stage of the bid phase," Poole said in a release.
