International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach speaks at the 128th IOC session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on July 31, 2015. The session will decide the host cities of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games and the 2020 Youth Olympic Winter Games. (Photo: Xinhua/Gong Lei)
Eighty-five members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will vote for the 2022 Winter Olympics race on Friday afternoon, the IOC confirmed.
Fifteen members, about 15 percent of the IOC members, will not be voting. They are 11 "excused" members including world soccer chief Joseph Blatter, three Chinese - Yu Zaiqing, Li Lingwei and Yang Yang, and IOC President Thomas Bach.
Beijing is widely seen as the front-runner in the competition against Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Eighty-one members will vote in the 2020 Youth Olympic race between Lausanne and Romania's Brasov.
In addition to Blatter there are four other Swiss who are ineligible: Gian Franco Kasper, Rene Fasel, Denis Oswald and Patrick Baumann and one Romanian in Octavian Morariu. Interestingly, because Lausanne is planning to hold some events over the French border, Tony Estanguet and Guy Drut are also excluded.
