Munich 2018 All The Way

Katarina Witt of the Munich 2018 Olympic Bid may be secretly jumping for joy over today's resignation of Annecy, France, 2018 bid chief.

According to Inside The Games, Annecy's CEO pulled out over government financial support (or lack thereof) as the next hurdle of the 2018 Olympic bid process -- delivery of the bid books to the IOC -- approaches Jan. 11, 2011.

July 6, 2011, is the big day when Munich, Annecy or PyeongChang, South Korea, will take home hosting duties from the IOC session in Durban, South Africa.

I am eager to eventually study the bid books and learn more. For the moment, Munich is my personal favorite as it would be wonderful to see the Games return to Bavaria and for the magnificent Olympiapark facilities of 1972 to see new life (though they remain a thriving legacy of the earlier summer Games).

If you wish to peruse the bid books, head over to GamesBids.com and look at the profiles for each city. Happy reading.

Photo via MotorInsight.com

Odds for 2016 Olympic Vote

During the next few days, it's safe to anticipate a deluge of Olympic bid coverage and buzz. I predict that some media outlets will even quote Olympic industry experts and polls and GamesBids.com, InsideTheGames (cast a vote on the right side of home page online) and/or Around The Rings, which each have good info on the quest for 2016 and other future Olympic bids.

A friendly fellow P.R. pro alerted me that Mickey Richardson, CEO of Bookmaker.com ("one of the largest sports books in the world") apparently "... tasked his team of experienced odds makers with analyzing the chances for each city to take this event and have listed Tokyo as their favorite to host the games, with Madrid as a close second."

I think it would behoove their odds makers to take a look at GamesBids.com, InsideTheGames and Around The Rings, as Tokyo and Madrid are consistently ranked the least likely to win the 2016 hosting duties in their polls.

But I'll keep an eye on this -- it's a safe bet that President Obama's decision to head to Copenhagen is a game changer. Any other odds makers out there want to comment with their two cents as to who will claim the 2016 prize?

I asked of Bookmaker.com, "What odds did this Bookmaker have on Sochi 2014, London 2012, Vancouver 2010 (GamesBids.com posted a report about an Australian oddsmaker on this one) or other recent winning cities? What is [Bookmaker.com's] track record for picking the right cities?" -- will post their response as received (they acknowledged this might be a new category for the Bookmaker.com team).