DURBAN, South Africa — The three candidates to host the 2018 Winter Olympics began three final days of frantic campaigning Monday, with the two leading contenders boosted by the backing of a president and soccer great and the outsider insisting it still can win.
The bid teams from Pyeongchang, South Korea; Munich; and Annecy, France, reached the home stretch, with their final presentations to the International Olympic Committee — and frenzied behind-the-scenes lobbying — all that’s left before Wednesday’s vote.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak — who travelled to South Africa for the 123rd IOC session and the vote — said it was his “duty” to deliver a first-ever Winter Games for his country. Munich called in the star power of World Cup-winning player and coach Franz Beckenbauer.
Underdog Annecy, meanwhile, insisted it was still a three-horse race.
Pyeongchang, which failed in consecutive bids for the 2010 and 2014 Games, is favoured to finally win over the IOC at its general assembly in Durban and become only the third Asian city — and first outside Japan — to host the Winter Olympics.
Japan’s Sapporo, in 1972, and Nagano, in 1998, are the only previous Asian cities to stage the event.
In the final run-up to the deciding vote by IOC members, Pyeongchang kept on with its message of taking winter sports to new markets — and a new country — under a bid slogan of “New Horizons.”
“We worked very hard and we hope members of the IOC will recognize and appreciate the efforts we have made,” Lee said, speaking to a small group of reporters in Korean through an interpreter.