Cities step up race to host 2018 Winter Olympics

GENEVA — The race to host the 2018 Winter Olympics is moving into a crucial phase after the three candidate cities met Monday's deadline for submitting their preliminary bid files. The International Olympic Committee said it received completed questionnaires from Annecy, France; Munich; and Pyeongchang, South Korea. The so-called bid book "provides the IOC with an overview of each applicant city's project and is the key element in the first phase of the procedure leading to the election of the host city," the IOC said in a statement. A working group will now prepare a report for the 15-member IOC executive board. The board, led by IOC president Jacques Rogge, meets June 21-23 in Lausanne to confirm the official candidates. The full IOC assembly will choose the 2018 host by secret ballot at its session in Durban, South Africa, on July 6, 2011. Pyeongchang is bidding for the third straight time after narrow defeats to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics and Sochi, Russia, for the 2014 Winter Games. It hopes to use the momentum of South Korea's best performance at a Winter Games in Vancouver, placing fifth in the medal table with six golds and 14 in total. Speedskater Lee Seung-hoon, the men's 10,000-meter champion, said Monday that the success had an "inspiring effect" on young Koreans. In Seoul, President Lee Myung-bak urged all South Koreans to join the effort to win the Winter Games bid. "Let's keep working to make the dream come true," he said Monday, ordering his government to speed up a multibillion-dollar railway project that would link the region's two main cities with Pyeongchang, a town of 40,000. The bid is based around the Alpensia ski resort in what officials claim would be the "most compact games in history." South Korea has never staged the Winter Games, which have been held twice in Asia and both times in Japan: Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998. Annecy is aiming to bring the Winter Olympics to France for the fourth time, and a third time in the Savoy Alps region following Chamonix in 1924 and Albertville in 1992. Bid leaders propose using eight ski resorts around Mont Blanc, including Chamonix, Megeve, and Morzine. All are within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of Annecy. Three former Olympic champions delivered Annecy's questionnaire to IOC headquarters last Friday. Edgar Grospiron won the moguls event at Albertville and is chief executive of the bid. He was joined by 2006 men's downhill winner Antoine Deneriaz and Gwendal Peizerat, 2002 champion in ice dance. Munich hosted the 1972 Summer Olympics and is trying to become the first to city to stage both summer and winter games. The ice events would be held in Munich and snow competitions about 80 kilometers (50 miles) away in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which hosted the games in 1936. Munich would recycle venues from the city's original Olympic park. "We have an incredible advantage at the heart of our plan," said Willy Bogner, bid chief executive and a 1960 Olympian in Alpine skiing. "We see the possibility of transforming the park into a new center of Olympic winter and summer sport for the next 40 years." If accepted as candidates, the cities must give the IOC detailed bid books and guarantees by Jan. 11, 2011. An IOC evaluation commission is scheduled to visit the candidates next February and March and submit a report to the 100-plus IOC voting members. – AP