Three bids, 88 members, 49 days to go

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Two years ago, Rio de Janeiro's bid team came here and put up a map that showed the Summer Games had never been to South America, a remarkably clever piece of stagecraft that separated Rio from four other contenders and, ultimately, made the case for its stunning win for the 2016 Summer Games. The three cities for the 2018 Winter Games came here Wednesday with movies and charts and Olympic medalists by the score, the two perceived chasers, Munich and Annecy, France, looking for a similar breakout moment to make up ground against the favorite, Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The Koreans came Wednesday with the admittedly "nervous" but nonetheless impressive Yuna Kim, the women's 2010 figure skating gold medalist. And they have their own world map.

That map shows that the Winter Games have been held in Asia only twice, and both times in Japan, in Nagano in 1998 and Sapporo in 1972.

This is the underlying dynamic of this 2018 race, and unless the others wield a compelling argument to the contrary, it's why this arguably is -- and always has been -- the Koreans' race to lose. The IOC will vote July 6 by secret ballot in Durban, South Africa.

The essential 2018 question is whether the forces of history, economics and demographics are -- or are not -- on Korea's side.

To frame it another way: Is the sports world still in the expansionist mode of recent years? Or is 2018 the campaign in which the IOC takes a break and opts for a more traditional locale before venturing forth anew in 2020, 2022 and beyond?

To be clear: The Koreans have a lot going for them. Then again, if they could win, of course they could lose. They have bid twice before for the Winter Games, for 2014 and 2010, and lost both times. Moreover, it's an International Olympic Committee election; by definition, the only thing predictable about an IOC campaign is that it's unpredictable.

Indeed, sometimes it's just flat-out unusual.

One such moment:

At the session Wednesday, held at the Olympic Museum, and formally dubbed a "technical briefing," with each city given a 45-minute presentation window followed by a question-and-answer session, Hicham el Guerrouj, the great Moroccan middle-distance runner who since 2004 has been an IOC member, posed a question during Annecy's time about the arrest in New York on sexual assault charges of French financier Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

IOC president Jacques Rogge promptly ruled the question out of order.

Rogge was not asked about that question at an end-of-the day news conference.

He declared the day a big success: "It was a very good day for the International Olympic Committee because whoever wins will definitely be able to stage very good Games."

He also said, and perhaps he's absolutely right about this, perhaps he's just practicing diplomacy: "It's going to be a close race."

The Koreans, with their tagline about taking the Games to "new horizons," would appear in many regards to be driving the campaign. At the least, the other two bids have felt compelled to respond to the Korean narrative.

"When you choose the Olympic host city, it is about more than just geography," Katarina Witt, the chair of the Munich bid, stunning as ever in a low-cut dress by the Berlin designer Michalsky, told the 88 IOC members on hand, stressing that Munich would deliver full stadiums and "the single greatest experience" of each athlete's life.

It's not just about geography, of course.

Even so, the broad theme of the era in which we are living is writ large.

The nations that through the 1990s played host to major sports events have been giving way in recent years to countries and regions that, logically enough, are saying, it's our turn now.

As a for instance, this is why -- despite what is shaping up to be a comparatively weak field for 2020 -- the U.S. Olympic Committee, even if its revenue and marketing issues with the IOC are resolved, ought to give serious, serious pause before considering an entry.

One theory holds that after ranging afield to new locales -- such as Rio for 2016 -- the IOC needs to park in a safe harbor, such as the U.S., for 2020.

Applying that theory now would deliver 2018 to Germany or France -- after 2014 in Sochi, Russia, where they're building a brand-new Winter Games destination from scratch.

The competing theory is that the Olympic and international sports world is still very much in the midst of turning away from what was and toward what's next.

See, for example: Russia 2014; Brazil 2016 (and soccer's World Cup in 2014.)

Russia, again, for the World Cup in 2018. Qatar, for the World Cup in 2022.

Qatar, again, for the men's team handball world championship in 2015 -- chosen this past January over three European bids, from France, Norway and Poland.

Our world is changing all around us. Just a couple days ago, in an event that went virtually unnoticed in the United States but is big stuff in Europe, with more than 100 million people tuned in to watch the final episode, Azerbaijan, one of the former Soviet republics, won the Eurovision song contest.

Germany was 10th; Britain, 11th. Spain and France finished farther still down the list.

Azerbaijan winning Eurovision -- that underscores a major cultural and economic shift.

Here's another huge economic shift in the making, a point the Koreans have underscored time and again during this 2018 campaign:

By 2030, according to an Asian Development Bank Study, Asia will make up 43 percent of worldwide consumption. From 1990 to 2008, the middle class in Asia grew by 30 percent, and spent an average of an additional $1.7 trillion annually. No other region in the world comes close.

Complicating the 2018 Olympic dynamic, though, is the factor of personality politics.

Thomas Bach, the vice president and presumed IOC presidential candidate in 2013, is leading the Munich bid. He observed Wednesday that "there are cycles of life," a time where "you go to new shores" and another "where you cultivate your foundations."

While the presentations Wednesday were important, the behind-the-scenes politicking now begins in earnest.

"This is a marathon race," Bach said at a news conference. "It's of no importance whether you lead at 22k or 35k or 40k. The only thing that counts is to cross the finish line first, on the 6th of July. After today's presentation and the response, which we can feel, we go into this final stretch of this very special Olympic marathon with full confidence and with all the determination and with all the passion we can have for the Olympic Games in Germany and for winter sports in particular."

Asked where Munich stood at this point in the "marathon," Bach answered, "I don't care. This is, as I said, about winning."

For their part, the French team includes Jean-Claude Killy, the triple 1968 Games ski champion turned sports administrator. Arguably no one within the Olympic movement carries more credibility within winter sports circles. "We think we have nothing to envy the other two propositions," he told reporters after the French had briefed the 88 members.

Later, he said that he supported the bid "very strongly." He also, reading from a paper left over from the German news conference, said, "It says here that 'Munich loves you.' So I just want you to know that we love you, too."

The chairman of the Korean bid, Yang Ho Cho, met reporters immediately after the Pyeongchang presentation ended. In keeping with the Korean message of humility, he said, "The decision is up to the IOC members. We did our best," adding a moment later, "We sent a message of new horizons."

--

A quickie and by no means exhaustive summary of the three bids:

-- Munich: One of the world's great cities. Re-purposed 1972 Summer Games venues. Big crowds. Fantastic guaranteed atmosphere. German business underwrites 50 percent of the revenues of the seven sports on the Winter Games program. Germany hasn't hosted the Winter Games since 1936.

-- Annecy: The IOC has had a penchant for staging recent Winter Games in big cities -- Vancouver, Torino, Salt Lake City. What about the mountains? "Authentic" Annecy, amid the world's most iconic mountain range and with a sustainable development plan in mind, is uniquely positioned to take the Winter Games, and mountain communities worldwide, into a 21st-century future.

-- Pyeongchang: Time is not only ripe but right to go to Asia and South Korea to grow the Winter Games, and in a big way. 87 percent national support for 2018 Games. Major national priority. Two prior bids, spent $1.4 billion to build first-class Alpensia resort in what used to be potato fields. "We are keeping our promises to the IOC," former provincial governor and bid leader Jin Sun Kim stressed at news conference.

Money, geography and a three-horse race

LONDON -- From the moment in December that Edgar Grospiron resigned, throwing Annecy's bid for the 2018 Winter Games into turmoil, it was never quite certain whether the campaign from the French Alps would ever again regain enough balance to again become a credible contender. At times, to be frank, it was like watching a train wreck. The Annecy bid stumbled along for weeks without a leader. Finally, Charles Beigbeder, a French entrepreneur, was convinced to take the job. Budget-wise, they've acknowledged many times since, they are running on the low side. They have struggled to cobble together a narrative.

On Thursday, however, here before the SportAccord convention of influential sports leaders from around the world, it all came together.

For arguably the first time, the Annecy campaign put together a coherent and credible pitch for a village-style Alpine Games: A  "bid from the mountains with the athletes for the future," with an emphasis on what they called an "authentic" Winter Games.

People noticed.

"It is a much better race than many in the IOC thought it would be six months ago," Craig Reedie, the British IOC executive board member who helped lead London's winning 2012 bid, said after watching Annecy's presentation, along with those from rivals Munich and Pyeongchang.

"The two front-runners," he said, "have developed extremely well."

And, Reedie said, "The improvement in Annecy is -- "and here he paused, searching for just the right word -- "marked."

Annecy's chances? There aren't even 100 days to go until the IOC's July 6 vote for 2018 in Durban, South Africa.

Does Annecy have enough on stage and screen to overcome the strong presentations from Munich and Pyeongchang?

The odds remain long, particularly because Annecy was yet again lacking again on Thursday the key element -- the in-person presence of Jean-Claude Killy, the superstar of French and Olympic winter sport, who appeared Thursday only in a short video?

Yet for Annecy -- indeed, for the IOC -- the issue has always been to make this 2018 derby a three-horse race, not just two.

"It's a three bid-city race. That's clear," Beigbeder asserted at a late afternoon news conference, adding a moment later, "They have to choose one, meaning the IOC, "and we have to make a difference."

Annecy went first Thursday. Then Munich. Then Pyeongchang.

No surprise, Munich's presentation proved robust. Following a strong presentation in March to the IOC's evaluation commission, the Munich team proved strong here in London, too.

The chair of the Munich bid, Katarina Witt, in a pinstriped black Strenesse coat-dress and stunningly high Michael Kors pumps, in her best breathy stage voice, kicked things off by unveiling the "vision" of a "festival of friendship in a setting that reveals the full possibilities of Olympic sustainability for all the world to see."

From there, the Munich team talked up money and geography.

Ian Robertson, BMW's head of marketing and sales, noted the Munich-based company now supports not only the bid but London 2012, the U.S Olympic Committee, national Olympic committees in France, Greece, China and several international sports federations. German business, he said, underwrites 50 percent of the revenues of the seven sports on the Winter Games program.

This winter, he said, Germany played host to 12 World Cup events and three world championships that attracted nearly one million spectators and a cumulative German television audience of over one billion viewers. "That's the kind of reach sponsors want," he said.

Back to Katarina for Munich's line of the day, and an unsaid but nonetheless obvious poke at Pyeongchang.

"… When you choose a host city for the Olympic Games -- Summer or Winter -- it is about more than just geography," she said, Pyeongchang touting "new horizons," the promise of taking the Winter Games to new markets in Asia.

She said, "It is about the kind of experience the athletes of the future should have," a suggestion that there might be a livelier place to spend 17 days in February -- say, Munich, one of the world's most interesting cities -- than, oh, Pyeongchang.

Which is why, the Koreans said as part of a powerful performance of their own, they've planned for a "Best of Korea" experience in Pyeongchang. Already, they said, they've signed up 39 companies with 120 brands -- world-class amenities, dining, shopping, entertainment and more.

You want to talk money?

The Koreans clearly had been anticipating the German strategy. Let's put it this way: if 50 percent of your portfolio rested in one stock, wouldn't you kinda want to diversify?

"We believe," Theresa Rah, the Pyeongchang director of communications, said from the stage, "that diversifying the financial support of winter sport from new markets makes sense for the winter sport industry, federations, the athletes and the Olympic and Paralympic movements."

By 2030, according to an Asian Development Bank Study, Asia will comprise 43 percent of worldwide consumption. From 1990 to 2008, the middle class in Asia grew by 30 percent, and spent an average of an additional $1.7 trillion annually. "No other region in the world even comes close," Rah said.

The South Korean sports and culture Minister, Byoung-gug Choung, announced Thursday that the government would invest $500 million to help promote winter sports and groom Korean athletes in a program dubbed "Drive the Dream" from 2012-2018.

Also in the works -- a $1.8 million plan to pay for visits from national Olympic committee officials from 2012-2017, and a $1.05 million plan for trips by international federation experts.

Completed in October, 2009: the Alpensia resort in Pyeongchang, at a cost of $1.4 billion.

You want to talk geography?

"The argument," Rah said, in front of a map of the world that showed the Winter Games having visited Asia only twice, both times in Japan, in 1972 and 1998, "really isn't about 'new versus old' or 'traditional markets versus new markets' or even clever metaphors about 'roots and new horizons.' No.

"The real decision is about maximizing the opportunity for winter sport for as many young people as possible, wherever they may be."

All of which surely made for Pyeongchang's counter-punch of the day.

But not the line of the day.

That went to the French sports minister, Chantal Jouanno, as part of an again-relevant Annecy bid.

"It is a great pleasure to be here in London," she said, "a city that in the sporting context has taught us French two things:

"That favorites don't always win," a reference to the 2012 contest. Paris was heavily favored to win. Instead, London did.

When the laughter in the hall died down, the minister, smiling, finished: "And that any bidding city must understand the challenges sport faces -- and offer a true global vision to resolve them."

--

Of special note:

The Korean presentation opened with Yang Ho Cho, the Pyeongchang 2018 chairman, saying:

"Before I begin, please allow me to send our deepest sympathies to the people and the [national Olympic committees] of both New Zealand and Japan.

"The world is with you, and we look forward to seeing your great teams in London next year."

Pyeongchang 2018's conductor: Yang Ho Cho

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea -- Nine years ago, Yang Ho Cho, who is the chairman and chief executive officer of Korean Air but who is really a regular guy, got five of his buddies together and they did one of those bucket-list things. They drove across the United States, Los Angeles to New York. Yang Ho Cho is not, after an extraordinary career in business, lacking for means. He could have arranged the trip so that he and the crew stayed at the most upscale of hotels and ate only the finest meals. Not the point. They wanted to feel the United States, to have a genuine experience, to talk along the way with real Americans.

They did have two big cars, a Lincoln and a Lexus, for all six guys and their bags. But for most of the trip they stayed at $30 per night Best Western motels. They ate with near-religious fervor at McDonald's for breakfast; at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Subway or (again) McDonald's for lunch; and, always, at a Chinese joint for dinner.

"No matter how small the town was," he said, laughing, remembering the adventure, "there was always a Chinese restaurant."

This third straight Korean bid for the Winter Olympic Games brings with it an almost-entirely new set of characters. Perhaps no one embodies that fact more than Yang Ho Cho, and that holds significant consequence should the International Olympic Committee chose Pyeongchang in its July 6 vote for 2018. Munich and Annecy, France, are also in the race.

The IOC's 2018 Evaluation Commission, after visiting Annecy last week, turned this week to Pyeongchang. It travels March 1-4 to Munich.

With the exception of a very few notable personalities, among them the former provincial governor here, Kim Jun Sun, the prior two Korean bids -- both unsuccessful, for the 2010 and 2014 Winter Games -- left a remarkably unremarkable impression. The image that lingers: packs of men, almost all men, dressed alike in dark suits, smoking a lot of cigarettes, speaking the Korean language almost exclusively, obviously giving off the impression of competence in their spheres but just as obviously not resolving to the IOC's satisfaction one of the most elemental questions any bid campaign presents:

Do I want to do business with these people?

In any enterprise, the wanting-to-do-business factor depends on the getting-to-know-you factor -- and all the more so in the Olympic sphere, where bids cost tens of millions of dollars and Games run to billions. The IOC has a franchise not only to extend but to protect.

The IOC thus moves with prudence and common sense.

So does Yang Ho Cho.

This is a man who oversaw nothing less than a thorough transformation of his airline's corporate culture. He took over after a series of accidents in the 1990s; he instituted changes that turned Korean Air into one of the world's safest carriers.

This is a man who moves easily now at the highest levels of Korean and western business, government and politics.

At the same time, this is a man who moves comfortably in any environment -- having seen pretty much everything along the way, including the Vietnam War, the Korean DMZ, gritty downtown Los Angeles and a lot of McDonald's menu boards.

He is a genuine human being. He is accessible and real. "I want not just to shake the hands of the IOC members," he said here Thursday night, one of a series of conversations in various locales around the world over the past several months. "Instead, I want them to say, 'This is a guy I can work with for the next eight years.' This is what we want to show."

Real people, even important businessmen, sometimes make mistakes -- that's life. Yang Ho Cho accepts responsibility and asks to move on. Last year, Korean Air signed a sponsorship deal with the International Skating Union. The ISU's president, Ottavio Cinquanta, is a ranking IOC personality. The IOC thereupon issued a warning to the Pyeongchang bid committee, and the airline agreed to postpone its sponsorship of the skating federation until after the July 6 vote.

"We had good intentions," Yang Ho Cho said. "There wasn't any hanky-panky. I had to learn.

"... If you're talking about transport -- I'm an expert. Sports -- I'm learning."

This Korean 2018 crew is -- like Yang Ho Cho -- entirely, indeed profoundly, different. They move, many of them, effortlessly in English -- like communications director Theresa Rah.

They invite you to sit with them in the hotel bars. If that doesn't sound like such a big deal -- it's a huge change from the prior two bid cycles.

Early on, it was decided that the 2018 strategy would be to reach out, early, to non-Koreans who could help -- among them, the English communications and strategy advisor Mike Lee, who played a key role in Rio de Janeiro's winning 2016 Games bid, as well as the American counterpart Terrence Burns, who helped Sochi win for 2014.

Most intriguingly, Yang Ho Cho is not the emotional center of the campaign. Nor is he aiming to be. In that regard, the German and Korean campaigns make for a vivid contrast. Munich puts forward a star: Katarina Witt, a two-time Olympic figure skating champion. Yang Ho Cho is more orchestra conductor than star.

It is perhaps illuminating that though Yang Ho Cho of course speaks English -- he went to high school in the United States -- he had no trouble a few months back acknowledging a succession of 2018 advisers who suggested that with a little bit of practice he could sound just that much better.

How many chief executives are truly willing to accept such coaching?

"Why not?" he said Thursday. "I can learn from anyone who can teach me."

If you know Yang Ho Cho's back story, though, that's hardly surprising.

Korean Air is the family business. So he didn't exactly grow up in poverty.

But he didn't exactly wallow in privilege.

Yang Ho Cho's passions have always been travel and photography. After high school, he went to go see the sights in Europe. His father sent him to the continent with $3,000.

"I spent only $2,000. I gave him back $1,000. After that," he said, "my father never questioned my spending."

Next:  boot camp in the Korean Army. When that was finished, he was sent to the DMZ:  "We had no electricity. We had to use kerosene lamps just to see. For me, it was just too much of a shock."

Anything, he reasoned, had to be better.

So he volunteered to go to Vietnam.

Again -- he volunteered to go to a war zone. "At least in Vietnam," he said, "they had electricity."

He spent 11 months there. "After that -- it was back to the DMZ." And after that, he had learned something about himself: "If I can live at the DMZ, I can do anything."

When his military service ended, he went to college in Korea, then moved to Los Angeles, to learn the family business in earnest.

He and his wife lived downtown. He was getting paid $800 per month. Their rent was $300. It was a big treat to take the kids out for French fries.

While in Los Angeles, he earned a master's degree at USC -- where he now serves on the board of trustees.

He still has the California driver's license he got all those years ago. It came in handy on that road trip to New York.

He and his crew saw the national parks in Utah; then took in Santa Fe, New Mexico; went back up to Oklahoma; headed down to New Orleans; east to Savannah, Georgia; then made their way up through Washington, D.C., to New York.

Oh, they did make one other important stop along the way. They went to Memphis, and for one very important reason.

That's where you can find Graceland and, as Yang Ho Cho said with a laugh, "I like Elvis."

The IOC's week along the beach

ACAPULCO -- For a week, the Olympic world moved itself to the Fairmont Princess hotel along this resort's palm-strewn beaches. The indelible image:

Vlade Divac, the former NBA star who is now president of the Serbian Olympic Committee, taking to the sand after the meetings were done for the day, the sun creeping lower and lower in the west, to play beach volleyball.

Funny how everyone wanted to be on Vlade's team.

Inside, with Vlade very much in attendance, the Assn. of National Olympic Committees met -- the largest gathering of Olympic figures outside the Games themselves, with officials from more than 200 nations on hand. Amid dozens of presentations, ANOC re-elected as its president Mario Vazquez Raña, the Mexican media mogul and senior International Olympic Committee figure.

Moreover, ANOC convened a first-ever joint session with government sports ministers; some 100 showed up. ANOC held a joint session with the IOC's policy-making executive board. And then, finally, the IOC board wrapped it all up with a three-day meeting of its own.

The highlights:

-- Each of the three 2018 bid cities appeared before the ANOC assembly; these marked their first public presentations. Munich, with two-time Olympic figure skating champion Katarina Witt and polished videos, unveiled its "festival of friendship" while Pyeongchang, seeking to bring the Winter Games to Korea for the first time, promoted "new horizons" with indisputable government and business support.

The presentations by those two seemed to most a cut above that of the third city in the race, Annecy, France. But it would be foolish, particularly at this early stage, to count Annecy out. The IOC in recent years has shown a distinct preference for bids with a single figure the members want to do business with; the head of the Annecy bid is the eminently genuine Edgar Grospiron, himself a gold-medalist in freestyle skiing.

The IOC will make its 2018 choice next July at an all-delegates session in Durban, South Africa.

-- The IOC said it is "looking favorably" at the inclusion of women's ski jumping and several other events, among them the extreme sports favorite slopestyle, for the Sochi 2014 Games. But it stopped short of saying yes -- for now.

Instead, the IOC gave president Jacque Rogge the authority to say yes (or no) after the world championships this coming winter. The women's ski jumpers have been fighting for inclusion for years. In slopestyle, the competitors go through "features" such as rails and bumps.

The full under-consideration list of new events: women's ski jumping; ski slopestyle (men's and women's); snowboard slopestyle (men's and women's); ski halfpipe (men's and women's); biathlon mixed-team relay; figure-skating team event; luge team relay.

"They said they were favorably looking at the sport," the 2009 women's world ski jump champion, American Lindsey Van, said in a telephone interview from Park City, Utah.

"I have to think positively. They didn't say no. So we're headed in the right direction."

-- Sri Lanka's Olympic committee proposed that technology or laser shows could replace fireworks at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer and Winter Games, citing environmental concerns.

Rogge said the IOC would review the issue. He also said it would be considered "seriously."

The likelihood of fireworks going away from the Olympic scene seems improbable. The gala banquet that Señor and Señora Vazquez Raña threw here for ANOC delegates, for instance, was preceded by a beach-side fireworks show.

Improbable, however, is not impossible. It used to be that live doves, symbolizing peace, were released as part of the opening ceremony. That was until a bunch of doves got cooked by the cauldron at the 1988 Seoul Games. Now the doves are featured symbolically -- and sometimes memorably indeed, as was the case with the stylization by acrobats at the Torino 2006 Winter Games.

-- Vazquez Raña was elected by acclaim to another four-year term as ANOC president. ANOC gets a representative on the IOC executive board. That's now Vazquez Raña. He turns 80 in two years. That creates a conflict with IOC age-limit rules that say that's when he has to step down as IOC member, and thus from the executive board.

The IOC adopted those age-limit rules as part of its response to the Salt Lake City corruption scandal some 10 years ago. The Vazquez Raña case thus promises to make for an intriguing test of the IOC's commitment to those reforms. Unclear is how, if at all, the FIFA bid scandal -- and the closer look at governance issues it surely will prompt in many Olympic and international sports offices -- may affect Vazquez Raña's status.

Rogge said the executive board will study the issue. A decision is likely in 2011.

-- At the news conference wrapping up the week, Rogge urged FIFA to follow the same sort of path the IOC did in the wake of the Salt Lake scandal.

Rogge said FIFA president Sepp Blatter "was so kind to call me" to discuss vote-buying allegations in the race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, the IOC president adding he suggested that Blatter "do exactly what he has done and try to clean out as much as possible."

The IOC ended up ousting 10 members and enacting a 50-point reform plan amid allegations of offers of cash and other inducements linked to Salt Lake's winning 1995 bid for the 2002 Winter Games. Asked if he could be sure the IOC was not itself now in line for another major corruption case, Rogge responded, "Could it happen to the IOC? I hope not. I believe the rules we put into place protect us as much as possible. But you can never say never in life. Cheating is embedded in human nature."

Ultimately, the import of these Acapulco meetings may prove to be the joint session with government ministers. It was a coup for Vazquez Raña to get so many here and while little constructive came out of this first give-and-take -- despite the fact that the speech-making ran on for 11 hours -- little was expected.

A next logical step, much discussed in the open-air bar of the Fairmont:

The possibility of convening a working group to draft a code of conduct for both sides, government and sports officials. Sports officials want government to contribute resource, primarily financial. It's entirely reasonable for governments to know where those funds might be going and then spent. Unclear, however, is whether misconduct -- whatever that might be -- should or could lead to sanction.

For now, just getting together -- sports and government -- makes for an entry in the history books.

In its way -- like seeing Vlade patrol the net.

--

This column appeared first on the AIPS website. That site is full of useful and interesting stuff, including reports from around the world you can't find anywhere else. AIPS, founded in 1924, is the international sports press association.

Three-city field, two-city race?

ACAPULCO --  The vote for the 2018 Winter Games is still some nine months away.  But is the race already tilting toward a two-city race in a three-city field? In presentations Thursday to officials from all 205 national Olympic committees, Pyeongchang and Munich, the South Korean and German candidates, articulated distinct visions. Those two would seem to offer the International Olympic Committee a clear choice when it votes next July.

Munich wants to throw a "festival of friendship," a traditional alpine celebration with the bang of a big street party.

Pyeongchang, bidding for the third straight time, unveiled a theme it called "new horizons," a call to the IOC to fulfill the mandate of taking the Games to every corner of the world.

Pyeongchang's vision is perhaps more profound. It falls neatly in line with the IOC's recent moves to Beijing (2008), Sochi (2014) and Rio de Janeiro (2016).

Then again, Munich has Katarina Witt, the two-time Olympic figure skating champion. It's impossible to know whether it ultimately makes a difference but let it be said, and directly: Katarina Witt exudes sex appeal.

She knows it. Everyone around her knows it. To ignore that is to ignore a salient feature of the Munich bid.

Everyone in the room listening to her Thursday at the lectern, when she was talking about celebrating winter sport "very passionately," when she said Munich's goal is to "lift the Winter Games to a new level of global excitement" -- everyone gets that the project has allure because she so obviously does.

Katarina Witt wore a two-tone grey-on-grey sheath dress Thursday from the American designer Nicole Miller, and four-inch pumps from the premium Swiss shoe label Navyboot, and you can bet that after the presentations the TV camera crews had eyes only for Katarina.

As ever, she played it cool. All business. She said afterward that it was thrilling to finally be able to go public with the presentations, that it finally affords those interested "the pictures in your head about what they could expect."

At some point -- not here, not now, it's way too early in the game -- the Koreans will counter with Yu-Na Kim, the Vancouver 2010 figure skating gold medalist.

At that point, the race will sharpen further. Next year.

Oh, and then there's Annecy, France -- the third entrant in the 2018 race.

There are some features to the revamped Annecy plan that are truly intriguing -- a "square of nations," for instance, a celebratory Games-times plaza. And bid leader Edgar Grospiron is one of the most decent, genuine guys anywhere.

Even so, it is an enduring mystery why the French -- just as they did in the 2005 race for the 2012 Summer Games, won by London -- seem to keep having difficulty sounding the right tone in these Olympic bid contests.

For instance, every bid-city presentation includes videos. The Annecy presentation on Thursday began with a video that included shots of Grospiron getting dressed, putting on a white shirt, tugging up his pants.

This reminder from the creative department: there is a fine line between being artistic and having a great many people in the room go, what?!

Following that video, the French line-up of speakers Thursday included Pernilla Wiberg, the great alpine ski champion (three Olympic medals, two gold) and former IOC member.

She's not French. She's from Sweden.

What?

Then came another video, this one from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the First Lady of France. Why not her husband, the president of the republic?

What?

The Munich presentation featured a video of German chancellor Angela Merkel. The recently elected governor of Gangwon province in Korea, Gwangjae Lee, appeared here Thursday in person, even speaking in English.

Was Carla Bruni-Sarkozy -- who spoke in French -- featured on Thursday's video because she is herself a former model? Or was it she and not her husband because he was the one who in early 2008 was the first European leader to raise the possibility of not attending the opening ceremonies that August in Beijing?

Within the IOC, they tend to remember those kinds of things. And the rough going the torch relay had in Paris in the spring of 2008 too.

Grospiron, asked after the presentation about Sarkozy, said, "You can be sure he is behind us," meaning fully supportive.

If Annecy has challenges, it's only fair to note that the other two surely do, too.

There's talk within Olympic circles of a push to take the Summer Games back to Europe in 2020 (say, Rome). The 2022 Winter Games, too (say, 2022, St. Moritz, Switzerland).

There are currently four Italian and five Swiss IOC members. The IOC votes through secret ballot, and so it's fruitless to try to divine whether any or all of those nine, for instance, might see the benefit in going to Asia in 2018 and then coming back to Europe thereafter.

Then again, it's not difficult to figure out that nine votes would give you an excellent head start on the 55 or so you might need to win.

The Munich effort must also contend with the presumed 2013 IOC presidential candidacy of Thomas Bach, the leader of the German Olympic Committee and an IOC vice president. Would the IOC give the Games to Munich in 2011 and then two years later turn right around and elect Bach, too?

"I hear different theories," the mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, said Thursday in an interview.

"It's a wonderful situation for Munich to have a representative of the bid who is so well-known and popular in the IOC. Of course, there is another opinion which says he wants to become president and he has a difficult situation …

"I only see that he is supporting the bid with all his power and influence, and we enjoy it."

As for Pyeongchang: Two times already it has come up short, losing 2010 to Vancouver and then 2014 to Vladimir Putin and Sochi. Can it finally get over the hump?

This 2018 bid would seem markedly different from before -- no references to politics or reunification on the Korean peninsula, for instance. This bid also features unquestionable governmental and heavyweight business support.

Will that be enough? If it's not, is it fair to ask what combination of elements and timing would ever be enough to make a Winter Games bid from Korea "enough"?

The only certainty in an Olympic bid contest, as ever, is uncertainty.

Well, and this -- in the next few moths, the so-called "Olympic family" will surely be seeing a lot of Katarina Witt.