A 2019 EYOF Evaluation Commission has already conducted a visit to the city located in the east of Turkey.

Jozef Liba, Guro Lium and Katerina Nycova visited all proposed sports venues, the Olympic Village, the Opening and Closing Ceremony stadium, and held two meetings with the representatives of the Turkish National Olympic Committee (NOC), the Ministry of Youth and Sport, and the Municipality of Erzurum.

They also met Ahmet Altınparmak, the Governor of Erzurum.

Erzurum is no stranger to hosting major winter sports events having staged the Winter Universiade in 2011, which saw around 1,800 athletes from more than 50 countries taking part in 11 sports.

Many of the facilities from the 2011 Winter Universiade are still in  place and will form part of the city's bid for the 2019 EYOF, including sports facilities and dormitories at the Atatürk University, one of the largest in Turkey with more than 40,000 students.

The City of Erzurum is situated over 1,900 metres above sea level and is surrounded by the Palandöken Mountain range.

Erzurum has also hosted the International Ski Federation (FIS) Junior Nordic World Ski Championships in 2012 and the FIS Snowboard Junior World Ski Championships in 2013.

So far Erzurum is the only city to have submitted a bid to host the 2019 Winter EYOF, while Minsk in Belarus has declared its interest in hosting the 2019 Summer EYOF.

The final Bid Books are due presented by the end of August this year before the election of the 2019 EYOF Host Cities will take place at the EOC General Assembly on November 21 and 22 2014 in Baku.

The EYOF is held every two years and provides an opportunity for young athletes aged between 14 and 18-years-old to take part in multi-sport competition.

Around 3,500 participants attend the summer editions with 1,600 attending the winter event.

Last year Utrecht hosted the Summer EYOF with the winter edition taking place in Brasov.

The 2015 and 2017 Summer EYOFs are set for Tbilisi and Győr while the 2015 and 2017 Winter EYOFs will take place in Voralberg and Liechtenstein, and Sarajevo and East Sarajevo respectively.

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