Two clusters, historical venues and a mix of innovative new and temporary structures are at the core of the Annecy 2018 Olympic Winter Games bid, as revealed in the bid book released to the public for the first time on Tuesday.
The bid book, formally known as the questionnaire response to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), was delivered to the IOC prior to the March 15 deadline and will be used to qualify the bid as a candidate. A short list will be determined in June.
The USD $385 million price tag for venue construction and improvements (not including transportation infrastructure) puts Annecy in the same range as costs proposed by the bid’s two competitors, Munich and PyeongChang.
“Annecy and Mont Blanc wish to invite the entire world to a universal celebration that will write a new page in Olympism and bring together, for all generations, pleasure with performance, friendship with competition and high stakes with high-spirited games,” the report documented.
USD $21 million is budgeted for Annecy’s entire bid campaign – $13.5 million will come from public sources and the balance will be financed by French Olympic Committee sponsors. According to a survey, 88% support the bid across France while 81% approve in Annecy.
There will be two main clusters of venues in the plan. The Annecy cluster will be home to the ceremonies at an exisiting stadium, skating competitions at new and permanent facilities, biathlon and nordic skiing at Le Grand Bornand, and the Olympic Family accomodations.
The Mont-Blanc cluster will host curling in an exisiting arena, ice hockey at new facilities, freestyle skiing in Megeve, Alpine skiing at Les Houches and Morzine and snowboarrding in Flaine. There will be a new high-capacity gondola connection Flaine and Mont-Blanc.
Cross-country skiing, ski-jumping and nordic combined will be at La Clusaz.
Sliding events will be at a stand-alone venue at La Plagne – the same facilities that were used for the 1992 Albertville Olympic Winter Games and have been upgraded in 2008.
Two Olympic villages are planned, one for each cluster at a distance of 50 minutes apart. The Annecy village will be 5 minutes from the main press centre and 10 minutes from the ceremonies. 83% of athletes will be less than 30 minutes away from their competition venues. Land will be purchased to accomodate construction of these villages.
There are 80,000 hotel rooms within a 50km Games centre radius; 25,000 fall in 3 to 5 star categories. Media accomodation will be in reuseable, moveable chalets with 3,000 individual rooms.
There will be significant transportation improvements in rail, road and other mass transit – and an addition of three new cable transport infrastructures for resort access. The area is serviced by two international airports incuding Geneva (35 minutes from the Games centre by car) and Lyon.
The proposed dates for the Games are the same for all three bids for 2018, February 9 to 25.
The IOC will select the winner July 6, 2011 in Durban, South Africa.
Read part 2 of the article here – Cost Breakdown
Visit the Annecy 2018 discussion forum on GamesBids.com
