AFP’s affiliate agency SID reports that German chancellor Angela Merkel has written a personal letter urging International Olympic Committee (IOC) members to award the 2018 Winter Olympic Games to Munich.
Merkel, who will be in Durban, South Africa prior to the vote, said in her letter addressed to the 100 delegates that the Olympic bid was a “national affair” for the Germans, “of significant importance”.
She will be accompanied to Durban by German president Christian Wulff and Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich. Merkel stressed that the different levels of government and shades of politics were united in backing Munich’s bid.
She reportedly ended the letter saying “we want to invite the world to be our guest”.
