The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has appointed an Evaluation Commission to further analyse the projects put forward for the first Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in 2012.

In August, IOC selected Harbin (China), Innsbruck (Austria), Kuopio (Finland) and Lillehammer (Norway) as the finalists in the bid for the winter YOG.

The IOC decided that the Commission will be chaired by Ms Pernilla Wiberg, IOC member and IOC Athletes' Commission member, and is composed of NOC representative Russian Olympic Committee vice president Victor Khotochkin, International Skating Union director general Fredi Schmid, Swiss Olympic Association secretary general Martin Rutishauser, IOC Olympic Games executive director Gilbert Felli, IOC sports director Christophe Dubi and IOC head of the YOG Essar Gabriel.

The Evaluation Commission will listen to the bid presentation from the candidate cities in September through a video conference call. The video conference calls will take place for one hour and will be structured in two parts: a 15-20 minutes verbal presentation by the city to present its bid, followed by questions and answers.

The host city of the winter YOG will be announced in December.

(Xinhua News Agency September 4, 2008)