Early Blows for Annecy in 2018 Olympics Race

Denis Masseglia remains confident in Annecy’s chances (M. Bisson)(ATR) As the IOC launches its 2018 applicant city seminar, the head of Annecy’s Winter Games bid admits to Around the Rings that the French campaign is lagging well behind its two rivals.

“I agree that at this time Annecy is behind,” Denis Masseglia, president of the French NOC, he said.

While 2018 rivals Munich and Pyeongchang had two bid officials as well as their NOCs present at the European Olympic Committees general assembly in Lisbon last week, there were no Annecy executives present in an observer status at the congress.

“We are not organized perfectly yet, but we think that we will be organized perfectly after the Olympic Games in Vancouver. We start later than the other bids,” he said.

“For us the important thing is to make steady progress in our promotion. We need to have the same message from now until 2011 and add progressively to it.”

The German and South Korean bids also have chief executives or the equivalent to lead their campaigns – Annecy has not yet made such an appointment with only Masseglia and Annecy Mayor Jean-Luc Rigau guiding the bid.

Masseglia said a CEO for Annecy might be appointed in the next few months.

His comments came ahead of the IOC’s applicant city seminar, which kicked off Wednesday at the Beau Rivage Hotel in Lausanne. The meeting ends Dec. 5. Each bid will be represented by to 10 bid officials.

Last Friday, Annecy suffered a blow to its campaign following the departure of French IOC member Guy Drut from the EOC’s executive committee. It’s the first time for many years that France has not been represented on the committee. Drut left the Lisbon congress early, reportedly annoyed that he failed to retain the seat he had held for eight years.

Masseglia, also present at the congress, insisted the ousting of Drut from the EOC executive was not damaging for the Annecy bid. He said Drut and French IOC Jean-Claude Killy would have important roles in the 20-month bid contest for the 2018 Games.

He told ATR he was confident in Annecy’s chances “because we think that between the three bids we are the one with the best advantages to offer an authentic Winter Games”. Masseglia said “humility and confidence” summed up the status of the French bid.

Annecy announced a new logo Tuesday in the first major PR move of its campaign. It is pitching itself as an attractive Munich's bid team at the EOC congress: Bernard Schwank, new chairman Willy Bogner and IOC member Walter Troeger (M. Bisson) alternative to its rivals, boasting the support of the ski resort of Morzine and a bid that features skiing in three major ski areas nearby, including the slopes of Mont Blanc.

The IOC will decide on the 2018 host city on July 6, 2011 at the IOC Session in Durban, South Africa.

Bids Seek Pointers at Seminar

The IOC said the 2018 applicant city seminar aims to provide the cities “with information on the IOC and the Olympic Movement, the bidding process and the organization of the Games”.

The seminar mainly involves the IOC administration but will also give the floor to Dmitry Chernyshenko, CEO of the Sochi 2014 organizing committee. He will share Sochi's experience from the bidding phase to the day-to-day Pyeongchang 2018’s director of international relations Jiyoung Jung and secretary general Jai Ryong Jang (M. Bisson)activities of an OCOG. Yesterday Chernyshenko was leading a press conference in Moscow to announce the new digital Olympic logo for the Sochi Games.

The IOC said individual meetings with the 2018 cities will be held on Dec. 5.

Munich 2018 CEO Bernard Schwank said the seminar would be useful to assist the bid in assembling answers to the IOC questionnaire due for submission to the IOC by March 15.

Schwank told ATR he hopes to announce another one or two more sponsors by the end of the year. Adidas is expected to be one of them. The bid has already secured around $21 million in sponsorship towards its $45 million fundraising target.

“Everything is going well, step by step we are moving forward,” said Schwank, who is the German NOC’s chef de mission at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

“We will deliver a very strong bid. We are working very hard on that and will try to convince the IOC members that Munich is the best choice.”

Pyeongchang 2018’s secretary general Jai Ryong Jang told ATR the IOC seminar “will enlighten us on how to proceed with the campaign”.

“We are there to learn about all the technical details for the bid book,” he said.

“Of course Pyeongchang has experience of preparing a bid book before,” Jang said, a reference to its two failed bids for the 2010 and 2014 Games.

“But when we started this campaign, we were doing it with the attitude of doing this for the first time. We will be assisted by experienced heads.”

Jang said Pyeongchang’s mini bid book preparations were on track.

Improvements would be made based on lessons learnt from Korea’s two bid failures, he said. “We intend to make this bid more compatible with the Olympic Movement.

"We are picking up the speed. It is a long journey until 2011,” he added.

With reporting from Mark Bisson

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