STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Sweden will bid for the 2014 Olympics -- the country's seventh attempt to hold the Winter Games since 1984.
The Swedish Olympic Committee said Wednesday it will submit an application for the cities of Ostersund and Aare. The International Olympic Committee will send bid applications in May. The deadline for submitting preliminary bids is July 28, with the IOC to select the host city in 2007.
Per-Axel Eriksson, a Swedish Olympic Committee member and bid project leader, estimated the cost of staging the 2014 Games at $829 million.
Other possible contenders include Salzburg or Innsbruck, Austria; Sofia, Bulgaria; and Pyeongchang or Mushu, South Korea. Salzburg and Pyeongchang bid for the 2010 Olympics. The Winter Games will be in Turin, Italy, in 2006, and Vancouver, British Columbia in 2010.
Sweden has never held a Winter Olympics, but it hosted the 1912 Summer Games and the equestrian events of the 1956 Summer Games. Stockholm made an unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Ostersund and nearby Aare, which is Scandinavia's leading Alpine ski resort, finished second in balloting for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, and third in the voting for the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan.
Ostersund, about 250 miles north of Stockholm, also lost to Salt Lake City in the race for the 2002 Games. Aare lost earlier joint bids with other Swedish cities for the three Winter Olympics between 1984 and 1992.
