Witt confident of yes vote in crucial Olympic referendum

KATARINA WITT is confident local residents will vote in favour of Munich’s 2018 Olympic bid in a referendum next month.

UPBEAT: Munich 2018 bid chief Katarina Witt is hopeful her powers of persuasion will be successful at this week’s Sport Accord convention

Although only 22,000 residents of the Bavarian mountain resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen will be eligible to vote, Witt knows any chance of staging the Games could be fatally flawed by publicity surrounding a negative outcome.

The two-time Olympic figure skating champion is working hard to lobby for her bid at the Sport Accord convention in London but Pyeongchang are considered massive favourites, while the French resort of Annecy, whose bid has been plagued by internal issues, are rank outsiders ahead of July’s host city vote in Durban.

“We’re quite positive about the outcome of the referendum,” said Witt.

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“You will always have people who are against a big event, against innovation.

“We are open about it. There is nothing to hide, it’s just part of our culture in our country. It’s democracy and people are allowed to express their opinions.”

However, Quebec City’s much publicised hopes of staging the 2022 Olympic Winter Games have received mixed support from delegates at Sport Accord.

Their bid to host the 2002 Games was brushed aside in favour of Salt Lake City by the International Olympic Committee – receiving just seven votes to finish last in the only round of voting.

And the Canadian Olympic Committee supported Vancouver in the race the race to stage last year’s Games.

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But influential voices are still pushing hard, with Quebec Premier Jean Charest even mentioning it in his inaugural speech last month.

And Sam Hamad, the minister responsible for the Quebec City region, recently hired Olympic experts Populous, who helped Vancouver, London and Sochi prepare their Olympic proposals, to act as advisors to a potential candidacy.

But René Fasel, the winter sports representative on the IOC’s executive board, believes Canada might struggle to make an economic argument for staging the Games three times in just over three decades.

“Take bobsleigh for example. Canada’s has two tracks, one in Calgary and another in Vancouver. I don’t see how they can afford to build another new track and the bobsleigh events couldn’t be staged on existing tracks because they are both quite far from Quebec,” he said.

But the biggest issue for Quebec’s aspirations is the lack of a ski hill that meets the exacting standards of the International Ski Federation.

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Their initial proposal for a course in the Charlevoix region was dismissed as being too easy, leading to speculation that the Olympics could be shared with Lake Placid, the US venue of the 1980 Games.

“In theory the IOC allows mixed bids from across two countries. We’ve had joint bids before for the Winter Olympics because of the geography of winter sports,” said IOC president Jacques Rogge.