The city of Sapporo has expressed its interest in bringing the Winter Olympics back to Japan¡¯s northern island in 2026.

Now, the Hokkaido capital, and the Japanese Olympic Committee, will move forward with assessing the merit of a potential bid.

Sapporo will now enter a dialogue process, in which it will explore the benefits and opportunities of hosting the Olympics/Paralympics, while consulting with the JOC and International Olympic Committee before submitting its candidacy proposals at the end of March, 2018.