Bidding for the Games - Claudia Bokel Stumps for Munich 2018

(ATR) IOC member and Olympic silver medalist Claudia Bokel tells Around the Rings the Munich bid for the 2018 Olympics focuses on athletes, and capitalizes on compact infrastructure and a great legacy.

Bokel, spoke with ATR in Belgrade, Serbia, where she made her first presentation in support of the German bid to the European Olympic Committees General Assembly. She also appeared with the bid in Guangzhoulast month for the Asian Games and in Acapulco during the ANOC assembly in October.

"As an athlete, it is really something special that the Olympic Games happen in your country," the world championship fencer said.

With 80 percent of venues within five minutes of the Olympic Village and huge crowds expected to fill up stadia, Munich is an ideal venue for Winter Games, Bokel said.

"It is just great for athletes from all over the world to be able to compete in Munich 2018, where they have full stadia, a crowd that is knowledgeable and passionate and a great legacy".

For athletes it is important to perform in front of the public, and the encouragement and commitment coming from the crowds, saying they "just lift everybody’s spirits".

In front of large crowds, Bokel claims "athletes perform better, that is really what Munich has to offer."

Bokel says that the fact that the bid is focused on the athletes made it natural for her to join and become involved.

The IOC vote for the 2018 Games host city is scheduled for July 6, 2011 in Durban, South Africa. Munich is competing against Annecy France and PyeongChang, South Korea.

Bokel says there is a lot still to be done in the run up to the vote.

"What we do now is try to speak to everybody in the world, especially the world of sports, and tell them about our bid, what we think is great about it. We’ll continue until the end," she said.

Bokel, 37, born in the Netherlands, holds passports from Netherlands and Germany, the latter her home as a three-time Olympian epee fencer,

"I was born and raised in the Netherlands and I did different kinds of sports everyday but I really loved fencing.... I persuaded my parents that I wanted to go to a boarding school for fencing in Germany. My parents didn't like the idea of me not being at homebut they knew that I loved fencing so they let me go to the boarding school. I enjoyed the sports so much, I never expected to have the results that I had, I just wanted to do sports, it was somewhere inside me," she tells ATR.

Bokel saysshe got into a dual career when she attended university, studying chemistry while she was also junior world champion.

"I thought that chemistry and anti-doping somehow could be something I could get into, to combine sports and university, so I studied anti-doping at an anti-doping laboratory in Cologne to test nutritional supplements and contamination."

Bokel competed in three consecutive Olympics, beginning with Atlanta. She won a silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics and a gold medal at the 2001 World Fencing Championships.

From 2005 until 2009 Bokel chaired the European Olympic Committees Athletes Commission.

In 2008 she was elected to the IOC Athletes Commission and with that, an eight-year term as an IOC member. She is also a member of the newly-formed IOC Entourage Commission.

With reporting from Marta Falconi in Belgrade.