Lausanne, Switzerland - The inaugural Winter Youth Olympics in 2012 will take place in Innsbruck or Kuopio, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Monday.

The IOC said in a press release that the Austrian town of Innsbruck and Finland's Kuopio were picked by the IOC executive board after an evaluation committee report. Lillehammer (Norway) and Harbin (China) were dropped.

The host city will be elected by the IOC members in a postal vote and named by IOC boss Jacques Rogge on December 12.

The Winter Youth Olympics will bring together around 1,000 athletes aged 14-18 to compete in Olympic disciplines. The first summer edition is 2010 in Singapore.

Innsbruck hosted the Winter Olympics 1964 and 1976 while Kuopio is mainly known as a host of Nordic skiing World Cup events. (dpa)