GENEVA - Five bidding cities for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games all met the deadline of March 14 and submitted their application files, formally kicking off the bidding procedure, announced the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Friday.

The files of the five applicant cities, namely Almaty (Kazakhstan), Beijing (China), Krakow (Poland), Lviv (Ukraine) and Oslo (Norway), would provide the IOC with an overview of each city's vision and concept for the Games and form the basis for an initial technical analysis of the bid.

"These files will now be studied by an IOC-appointed working group, which will then submit a report to the IOC Executive Board (EB). The EB will decide which of the five cities will be accepted as candidate cities and proceed to Phase 2 at a meeting in July. Following its decision, the working group's report will be published on the IOC website," said the IOC.

In the second phase, candidature files from the successful cities will be due in January 2015, after which an IOC Evaluation Commission will visit each city to prepare a technical report to assist IOC members in making their decision.

The host city would be elected at the IOC session to be held in July 2015 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The race was originally a six-horse one between Almaty, Beijing, Krakow, Lviv, Oslo and Stockholm, but the Swedish capital withdrew in January due to a lack of government support.

The IOC noted that as the Olympic Games were a unique project, with a considerable size, scope and complexity, the committee would assist the applicant cities in a number of ways, including financially and through an extensive transfer of knowledge program.

Once the host city was elected, the IOC would continue to support the local organizing committee through Olympic Games Knowledge Management, as well as with the regular visits of its Coordination Commissions and experts to guide the organizers as they develop their Games project.