The Austrian Government gave its backing to a possible Innsbruck bid in June.

Officials have pledged, however, to let the people of Innsbruck and Tirol have the final say.

A referendum is now due to tack place in the Austrian city on Sunday to see whether their proposed bid will go ahead.

Defeats at similar votes have ended Olympic bids in recent years, including Polish city Kraków for 2022 and Germany's Hamburg for 2024.

Budapest Government officials also withdrew their city's bid for the 2024 Games after a petition for a referendum gathered more than 250,000 signatures.

A feasibility study exploring a possible Innsbruck bid painted a positive picture back in June.

It is claimed that no permanent new buildings would be required with events spread around the whole of Tirol state.

This would include the Opening and Closing Ceremonies at Tivoli Stadium, skating and ice hockey finals at the Olympic Stadium and sliding sports at Innsbruck's ice track.

St. Anton am Arlberg would host Alpine events with Hochfilzen and Seefeld staging biathlon and Nordic sports respectively.

An implementation budget of €1.175 billion (£1 billion/$1.3 billion) has been predicted while the Olympic Village would make use of existing urban developments.

It is claimed a bid would be "ecologically responsible, socially responsible, economically viable".

The city has previously staged the Olympic Games on two occasions, in 1964 and 1976.

It stepped in to host the latter after original host city Denver withdrew following a referendum failure.

Innsbruck, the capital of Tirol, also staged the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012.

It comes with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) passing changes to the 2026 bidding process.

The IOC opened the candidature process last month and it will comprise of two stages.

The first features a one-year dialogue stage between interested cities and National Olympic Committees, alongside the IOC.

As part of the non-committal stage, the parties will assess the benefits and requirements related to hosting the Winter Olympics.

The phase will run from September 2017 to October 2018, with the deadline to enter the process coming on March 31.

A shortened formal candidature stage will take place from October 2018 to September 2019, with the IOC claiming the streamlined procedure will help candidates increase the value of their Games delivery plan.

Sion in Switzerland and Calgary in Canada are among other contenders for 2026.

It is likely a referendum will be held in the Canton of Valais - of which Sion is the capital - should their bid go ahead.

Almaty in Kazakhstan, Sapporo in Japan and Erzurum in Turkey could also enter the race.