London Olympics chief Sebastian Coe on Wednesday gave advice to Beijing on how to win the 2022 Winter Olympics bid.
"You need to work right up the last minute," said Coe. also vice president of the world athletics body IAAF.
"Every delegate matters. You need to communicate all the time the importance and the qualities of the bid, and continue to explain why it is so important for your country to want to stage an Olympic Games."
On the sideline of the Asian athletics championships in Wuhan, Coe thanked Beijing for its help in the 2012 Olympics.
"I am very grateful for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Games who helped us to deliver the London Games," he said.
"We were in Beijing and we were given access to all the functional areas, which helped us to shape the London Games. We had a very very close working relationship with Beijing. London and Beijing are two very close cities."
Coe praised China's progress in athletics.
"The improvement in Chinese athletics has been profound," he said. "I congratulated the Chinese track and field federation and Su Bingtian. To be first Chinese man to run into 10 seconds was a wonderful achievement.
"For sprinting in middle distance, long distance, and race walk, you always have powerful competitors. And in women's distance events you have always been strong and powerful."
On international athletics, Coe said the most important is to attract the younger generation.
"We need to focus on young people," he said. "We should get more young people to be involved in our sport and we should create a commercial partnership with social media in order to help us to deliver that."
Coe noted the IAAF needs to work more closely with member federations, particularly the smaller federations who have financial challenges.
"We need to make sure that our development program was delivered well, and we need to make sure, when we are putting development fund, they are really going to federations who need those fund."
