On June 22, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board accepted three cities as candidates to host the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Annecy, France; Munich Germany; and PyeongChang, Republic of Korea. These locations were selected as official Candidate Cities after a working group of experts studied the application that each city submitted earlier this year and rated each city’s potential success in hosting a winter Games in 2018. The applications covered topics including government support and public opinion, general infrastructure, sports venues, athletes’ village, environmental conditions and impact, accommodation, transport, security, experience from past sports events, overall project, and legacy. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) provided the IOC with comments on the Paralympic-specific information submitted by each city.
The three Candidate Cities now have until January 11, 2011, to submit their Candidature Files-in-depth descriptions of their Olympic and Paralympic project. An IOC evaluation commission, including one representative from the IPC, will then visit each city to evaluate it and learn more about the details of the Candidature Files. The evaluation commission’s appraisal will be published in a report and sent to the full IOC membership one month before they vote for the host city during the annual IOC Session in Durban, South Africa, in July 2011.
For more information, visit www.olympic.org
