3 cities submit bids for 2014 Olympics

The three cities vying for the 2014 Winter Olympics submitted their final bid documents to the IOC before the midnight Wednesday deadline.

The International Olympic Committee said it received the files from Pyeongchang, South Korea; Salzburg, Austria; and Sochi, Russia. The documents, which run into hundreds of pages, cover more than a dozen topics, including venues, security, transportation and financing.

Next, the IOC evaluation commission will visit the three cities _ Pyeongchang (Feb. 14-17), Sochi (Feb. 20-23) and Salzburg (March 14-17).

The panel will issue a report analyzing the bids no later than a month before the IOC selects the host city July 4 in Guatemala City.

In 2003, Pyeongchang came within two votes of upsetting Vancouver in the vote for the 2010 Games. Salzburg finished third.

Austria last held the Winter Olympics in 1976 at Innsbruck. Pyeongchang wants to become the first Asian city outside Japan (Sapporo 1972 and Nagano 1998) to hold the Winter Olympics. Russia never has staged the winter games.