POSTED: February 13th 2011
InDepth
INTERVIEW: Jouanno sure of more cash for Annecy now that bid is back on track
KEIR RADNEDGE in Geneva / Sports Features Communications
GENEVA: French Sports Minister Chantal Jouanno expects more sponsors to hurry to swell financial support for Annecy’s pursuit of the 2018 Winter Olympics – now that the bid team have demonstrated to the International Olympic Committee that the bid is back on track.
Jouanno expressed her confidence in a wide-ranging and candid interview in the French Alpine city after last week’s four-day inspection by the IOC evaluation commission. The IOC decides between Annecy, Munich and PyeongChang – which it visits this week – in Durban on July 6.
Q: How do you think the Annecy inspection went?
CJ: The commission was very professional in the way it went about its work this week but it’s difficult to have an opinion on its conclusions. At least we are now on the same level as the other two candidates, PyeongChang and Munich. We had a bad report last June [from the IOC] because there were too many venues and sites and we had to reconfigure the bid. But we are now on the same level – well, I hope so.
The commission seemed impressed by the technical qualities and the current sites and venues. There was no strong criticism, only detailed questions. I hope they impressed by the work done in a few months and the quality of the Alps and the mountains. However they say the final decision depends on many circumstances, not only the quality of the bid.
Q: You mean political considerations?
CJ: If that were all then we should have quit long ago; if the IOC had said they wanted to go somewhere new then we wouldn’t have spent so much money. But they can’t just say it’s time for Korea or Asia. For example, our President says that Sochi [in 2014] is not in Europe so now, for us, maybe it is time to go back to some older places.
Q: How do you move forward?
CJ: If we have a good bid – and I think we do – then we must ensure everyone who votes knows about it. That means we must devote time to international marketing and communications and lobbying. We have a good young team – a team who speak English, which is hard in France – a team with athletes who play a key role such as Jean-Pierre Vidal following environmental issues, Perrine ?? the Olympic Village and ?? Barbet the paralympic game. They are here not just for the picture [opportunity] but to play a key role and we want them to take that message abroad.
Q: Why have French bids failed in recent years?
CJ: It’s the French character. We want a drama in whatever we are doing. Like the French Revolution. That’s a joke. Often in France political leaders want to take the lead in everything. This was the problem with Paris [bidding for the 2012 Olympics]. Firstly, we had too many political leaders and, secondly, we were sure we were going to win. That is not the case today. Quite the contrary.
Q: Why did Annecy get off to such a bad start?
CJ: We had a problem initially because the idea was to keep the state away because political leaders had been responsible for the failure of Paris. Then we had trouble in November when Edgar Grospiron resigned. Edgar worked hard but it was impossible for him to succeed because he didn’t have any back office. It was too much for him to be both general director and to promote our candidacy internationally. He couldn’t do both, it was impossible. That’s why I wanted to reorganize things, to have a businessman [Charles Beigbeder] at the head.
Q: Did you come close at any time to scrapping the bid?
CJ: Many people told me we should pull out but this was impossible because we had already spent E18m to be in a crisis situation and we would been the only country ever to retire five or six months before the end – and this is not the spirit of sport. You always compete, right to the end, even if you are injured.
Q: There is now an extra E3m in the budget but is that enough?
CJ: Not yet. We have E21m now but we need to reach 25m because we have to organize a lot of travel, for example, but it is obvious there will be private money. Companies are coming back because they see that the candidacy is back on track.
I can’t give you names but I’m talking about banks and big national companies. We have many companies making a lot of profits after all. In the early stages some companies told us that we were taking enough of their money in tax so they didn’t need to give more. But they’re coming back.
Q: How important was it to bring Jean-Claude Killy on board?
CJ: If you don’t have your country’s IOC members behind the bid then you lose credibility. He has a key role because he has a personal relationship with most of the members of the evaluation commission and because he gave us the keys to understand how the commission thinks. One important thing was that we must show more humility: we must “turn our beret,” as we say.
Q: What is your personal role?
CJ: If I’m needed I will go to Lausanne or London and, of course, to Durban [for the vote] but I don’t want to appear like a political leader who wants to be in the picture for political reasons. We have presidential election in less than one year so I must be careful. I will do what the bid committee tells me.
Q: What did President Sarkozy tell the evaluation commission?
CJ: He told them he was very proud to host them and he would have done so even if France had not been a Games candidate because the IOC is the equivalent of a government. To show them how positive he is about sports he told them how he got a ticket and went to Munich to see the Games in 1972.
The President believes in the vales of Olympism because sport is the only field of universality between all peoples.
He finished by telling the commission he understood that the decision, of course, was theirs. If we didn’t win we would be sad but we would accept it as a good decision. If they wanted to chose a new region that would be good because sport is universal but we would still be a candidate for future Olympic Games.
The Koreans have lost twice but have shown the way. Even if you fail then you try again. This is the spirit of sport. We will change things. At the moment we don’t have an international office in charge of debriefing after a bid. We need to have a clear international strategy so we will create an international office or agency. Today Guy Drut is in charge and we will continue with this project after the bid because we need to be more professional.
Q: Are you saying that if Annecy does not win 2018 then France would certainly bid for the summer Games in 2020? With Paris again?
CJ: If we don’t win, we would probably bid for 2020 because it would have been too long since France organized the Olympic Games. Paris? We have many cities who would like the chance.
Q: What lesson did you learn from your own sport, karate?
CJ: I was not good at school so I did a lot of sport including, of course, karate. I discovered that what mattered most was will, determination and commitment. I also found that sport can break down boundaries like nothing else. We must give more power to athletes and more places to sport in our policy.
Q: Do you still practise sport?
CJ: I like a new challenge every year. This year my challenge is to run the Paris marathon.
Q: What do you consider the strengths and weaknesses of the Annecy bid?
CJ: Firstly, it is being undertaken by and for the athletes who have a key role in the bid. Secondly, the landscape, the Alps. Thirdly, the ecological investment because - since we have high mountains and natural snow - we want to use 100pc renewable energies and, maybe fourthly, the willingnes of the people here.
As for weaknesses, I don’t know . . . we are not trying to put stars in your eyes, we just want to show off our mountains.
Keywords · Annecy · 2018 Winter Olympics · Jouanno
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