Olympic Newsdesk - Witt Joins Munich 2018 Bid; Johnson Offers Advice to IAAF

Katarina Witt, new chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, with joint managing directors Richard Adam (left) and Bernhard Schwank. (ATR/Panasonic:Lumix)(ATR) Two-time Olympic figure-skating gold medalist Katarina Witt is to be the face of Munich's bid for the 2018 Winter Games.

Bid chiefs named the 43-year-old as chair of a 23-member board of trustees Thursday. The group includes German football legend Franz Beckenbauer, former Olympic skiing champion Rosi Mittermaier and leading political figures such as former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Witt won gold medals for East Germany at the 1984 Sarajevo and 1988 Calgary Olympics.

IOC vice president Thomas Bach, who also heads the German Olympic committee, said Witt was an “excellent choice” to play a leading role in the bid campaign.

"Katarina Witt is internationally the world star of German winter sport,” he said.

Under the bid concept, Munich’s Olympiapark is the site of the ice cluster; the Athletes’ Village with 3,500 beds would be built right next to it. The snow cluster of venues is planned for Garmisch-Partenkirchen, site of the 1936 Winter Games.

Bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions will be held in Koenigssee.

The bid’s board of directors confirmed the plan for the 2018 Games concept at today’s meeting.

“The two-cluster concept has held up under intensive scrutiny, from a sporting perspective, in terms of traffic and also in regard to ecology,” said Bach. “It is the ideal basis for an internationally competitive bid.”

There are some changes in the spread of sports venues from the initial plans put forward in the feasibility study. The biathlon and cross-country skiing events will now be held below the Romanshöhe summits in the north of Oberammergau.

“The new locations were chosen in the light of both sporting considerations and environmental ones, such as the need to avoid infringements of protected areas,” said Bernhard Schwank, joint managing director of the Munich 2018 bid.

Last month, Munich 2018 unveiled BMW as its first major partner in a deal worth up to $7 million. Three more top tier sponsors are expected to be announced shortly and could generate an additional $21 million.

Munich is seeking to become the first city to host both the summer and winter Games; it staged the 1972 summer Olympics.

Annecy, France and Pyeongchang, South Korea are the only other cities confirmed for the 2018 bid race but others could announce their intentions before the bid process officially opens in October. The IOC will vote on the host city for the Games in July 2011.

Michael Johnson Offers Advice to IAAF

Michael Johnson said athletics is in danger of losing its commercial appeal. (Getty Images) Olympic athletics legend Michael Johnson offered some advice to the IAAF on how the sport can improve on its declining popularity and says the USOC might be able to justify their claim to Olympic revenue.

Speaking at a forum in London, the Olympic champion and former world record holder in the 200 and 400 meters said athletics is in danger of losing its appeal and that the IAAF and other athletics bodies need to change that.

“Participation is certainly not the problem. But at top level, in its present state, the sport’s appeal to TV rights holders and sponsors is probably not very good.”

He added “one of the problems for athletics is that it is half a dozen different sports all wrapped up the same package – and there may not be many people who are interested in all of them.”

Speaking about the controversial revenue sharing scheme between the USOC and IOC, Johnson appeared to side with the Americans.

“I don’t know the [financial] model. I know NBC pays big money and the majority of the Olympic sponsors are US-based. In that case, I would imagine the USOC would have some deserving claim - if they can show it’s their own effort which helped bring them all on board.

“But I don’t know if that’s true.”

2012 Hopeful Dies in Afghanistan

British Olympic hopeful Christopher Whiteside was killed in Afghanistan Wednesday after an explosion caused by an improvised explosive device.

Whiteside hoped to begin training for the British fencing team for the 2012 Olympics after returning from Afghanistan.

Whiteside, a trooper in The Light Dragoons Battle Group, was on his first tour of Afghanistan.

The secretary general of the International Federation of Sports Climbing said rock climbing should be in the Olympics. (Getty Images) …Briefs

…The secretary general of the International Federation of Sports Climbing said his sport should be in the Olympics. Speaking at the IFSC world championships in China, Reindert Lenselink said the sport is a natural fit in the Olympics. "This is a new sport that really attracts youth," Lenselink was quoted by the Xinhua News Agency." It's not something else like with a ball or with another bicycle. If you put little children in front of the wall, they see the holds and automatically they want to climb. It is a natural movement," he said. While the IFSC is not a recognized federation by the IOC, the Olympic governing body does count the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation as a recognized federation.

Written by Mark Bisson and Ed Hula III.