IOC Inspects Annecy Venues; Protesters Voice Concerns

(ATR)On the eve of a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the IOC’s Evaluation Commission visited the proposed venues for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Under blue skies and in bright sunshine, the commission first visited Le Grand Bornand, venue for biathlon, where they were greeted by about two hundred schoolchildren cheering and waving Annecy 2018 flags.

Visits followed to La Clusaz, the cross country venue, and Semnoz, where snowboard and freestyle ski events are scheduled. There were also stops at the planned sites of the Olympic Village in Saint Jean-de-Sixt, and figure skating in Annecy-le-Vieux.

Traffic was light on the roads from Annecy to the mountains 40 minutes away, but the buses shuttling media between sites appeared to keep to the bid book times promised.

Around 100 reporters and broadcasters shadowed the IOC's tour, but were kept apart from the 11-member commission at each of the venues in the Annecy hub, one of two clusters in the bid's candidature file. The IOC will inspect the Chamonix hub on Friday afternoon.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will make headlines Friday when he visits the village of La Clusaz, population 2,000, on Friday morning before having lunch with the commission in Annecy.

La Clusaz is the venue for ski jumping, Nordic combined, cross country and Paralympic alpine skiing.

Vincent Vittoz, one of the athlete ambassadors wheeled out to present to the IOC and reporters on the venue tour, tells Around the Rings he is confident in the bid's plans and hopeful they would leave the commission with a positive impression.

"I would be very proud to have the Olympic Games at home," said the 36-year-old, a four-time Olympian and 2005 cross country world champion.

"It will be a big festival. There is a really great atmosphere here. All the people of the village have a good spirit."

Commission members ended their day by visiting Le Paquier, a piece of public land next to Lake Annecy proposed as the venue for the $44 million, 42,000-seattemporary stadium that would host the opening and closing ceremonies.

Among the hundreds of people gathered here to witness a firework display were the "Anti Jeux Olympiques" protesters, who the IOC could not have failed to notice. A huge banner was unfurled on the site, with people waving placards and shouting anti-Olympic slogans.

French police cordoned off a section of Le Paquier to prevent the protestors from marching towards the planned stadium site, 650 feet away.

Commission chair Gunilla Lindberg and her colleagues on the commission are already familiar with the well-organized protest group, having met with them to discuss their concerns on Wednesday.

Annecy 2018 chiefs have had dealings with the group for the past two years. In that time, the group's supporters have grown in number and become a thorn in the side of the bid.

Philippe Metral-Boffod, the town councilor who heads the group, told ATR that 13,000 people had signed a petition protesting the Olympic bid. He said three demonstrations of about 3,000 Olympic objectors had taken place in the past 18 months.

The group is protesting the construction of Olympic venues and hotels at Semnoz and what it claims is a lack of regard for the environment in the bid's plans.

"It's a big waste of public money. The budgets are not well managed," Metral-Boffod said.

"The Olympic Games don't respect the environment. It is impossible to combine this project to create harmony with the environment."

Without going into specifics, he said Annecy's plan to use lake water to make artificial snow for Semnoz was one of the concerns.

Metral-Boffod insisted Annecy had not put together an environmentally sound plan in its bid book.

"It is an illusion. Last Wednesday, all the main environmental organizations of France withdrew from the project as they consider the environment has not been respected in this Games plan."

Written by Mark Bisson