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

The IOC said it received the files from Pyeongchang, South Korea; Salzburg, Austria; and Sochi, Russia.

The Salzburg bid committee delivered its material to IOC headquarters in Lausanne on Wednesday afternoon. Sochi handed in its documents on Monday, followed by Pyeongchang on Tuesday.

The documents cover more than a dozen topics, including venues, security, transportation and financing.

For the next stage of the process, 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 in Guatemala City on July 4.

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 Games in 1976 when Innsbruck hosted its second Olympics in a dozen years. Pyeongchang wants to become the first Asian city outside Japan (Sapporo 1972 and Nagano1998) to hold the Winter Olympics. Russia has never staged the Winter Games.

(Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2007)