POSTED: March 18th 2011
NewsUpdate
Annecy 2018 leaders set off again to put Winter Games bid back on track
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
LONDON/ANNECY, Mar 18: Annecy 2018 president Charles Beigbeder and French IOC member Guy Drut are undertaking an international round which will, they hope, leave behind them a new controversy over the Winter Olympics bid.
Drut and Beigbeder, appointed only at the start of January, are attending the African International Sports Convention in Marrakesh, Morocco. This follows up Beigbeder's travels since the end of the IOC evaluation commission's visit to Annecy last month.
His trips - at which he was able to met various 'players' in the Olympic movement - took in the Nordic Skiing World Championships in Oslo-Holmenkollen and the Global Sports Forum in Barcelona.
Earlier this week Drut was reported in L'Equipe as noting that at least six months was needed to create the agency he had proposed to draw on previous French bidding experience. He thought its emergence, with the support of the Sports Ministry, was essential because Annecy's own campaign had suffered from "too many soloists."
Sports Minister Chantal Jouanno, responding also to the French daily sports newspaper, insisted that Beigbeder and the country's IOC members - Drut and Jean-Claude Killy - rather than her, were the people responsible for spearheading the bid effort.
Bid rivals
She cautioned that words spoken out of turn served only to encourage bid rivals PyeongChang and Munich.
Beigbeder and his team will follow up the CISA appearance by attending other sporting events and conferences including around the world on behalf of Annecy 2018. These include the Seoul Congress of the international sports journalists' association (AIPS) and the annual assembly of the Oceania National Olympic Committees in New Caledonia.
He said: “Our primary focus is now on the international phase of the campaign, which means taking any opportunity we can to meet with people around the world.
"It is vital for the team to be meeting with members of the Olympic Family sharing our vision with them and listening and learning from their feedback and experiences. We have a team that is committed to a Games that would benefit winter sports all over the world and we want to bring this to life on the international stage."
Keywords · Annecy 2018 · Winter Olympics · Drut · Jouanno · Beigbeder
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