KIEV, November 5 (R-Sport) – Ukraine confirmed Tuesday that it plans to bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, with officials publicly signing a formal declaration of intent.
The figurehead for a Ukrainian bid is pole vault world record holder Sergei Bubka, who is the Ukrainian Olympic Committee president.
Bubka led the signing ceremony alongside Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Vilkul and Andriy Sadovyi, mayor of the city of Lviv, which would be the base for Ukraine’s first Olympics.
Ukraine had earlier aimed at a three-way bid with Poland – with whom it hosted the Euro 2012 football tournament – and Slovakia, but was left on its own when the Poles and Slovakians arranged their own joint bid without the Ukrainians.
Previously, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych had said it would be “tough” for Ukraine “to go it alone” with a solo bid.
The deadline for bids to the International Olympic Committee is November 14, with the winning bids to be announced in the summer of 2015.
Other potential bidders include Almaty in Kazakhstan, Sarajevo, Nice, Munich, Oslo, Barcelona, and St. Moritz and Davos in Switzerland.
Russia’s Black Sea city of Sochi will host next year’s Winter Olympics from February 7 to 23, while the 2018 Winter Games will be in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
