The Race for 2018....

Indeed, the race for 2018 is only a few months away with applicants deadline set for mid-October, so lets take a look at the confirmed bidders........

Annecy, France - just annouced today, beat Nice by 10 votes and Grenoble by 9 for France's nomination. Dont expect France to put a full effort, this is likely nothing more then a warm up for a Paris 2020/2024 bid.

PyeongChang, S. Korea - Two time loser, each time leading round 1 in votes only to lose out in round 2. Salzburg spoiled there party both times. Will Europe finally vote for them? Or will North Korea play a role in spoiling the party? Too many IFs again.

Munich, Germany - One time host of the 1972 Summer Games, looks to be the first to host both games. Helsinki is the only other summer city to have bid for a winter games, but they lost to Torino for the 06 winter games. Prolly going to be the early favourite, along with Pyeongchang.

Geneva, Switzerland - This will be interesting. Switzerlands last bid was for the 2010 games, the city escapes me, I think it started with A or H. They made the short list, and then lost a city refrendum and withdrew there bid a couple months before the vote. Very likely if they had stayed in, we wouldnt be looking at Van 2010. This time, Geneva is putting in a bid, and it could be a very interesting bid. A refrendum will be held in the coming months, but this could be a big heavy weight.

That there is the likely shortlist. Tromso, Norway was to bid, but escalating costs caused Norway to pull funding for the bid. Also, the States have stated they are not bidding for the games eithier. Other countries that have showed intrest include Ukraine, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan. And, I wouldnt put it past Spain to put in a bid. With a little effort, they could be a big player because of the loser factor. Whats the loser factor? Well, lets look at it as follows.....

Rome loses 2004 bid, Turin wins the 2006 games
Toronto loses 2008 bid, Vancouver wins 2010 games
Moscow loses 2012 bid, Sochi wins 2014 games.

With Spain bidding for 2016, and likely losing, a little effort into the 2018 bid could cause the loser factor to come into play, again.

I've been to Munich, it's an absolutly beautiful area. I lived in Germany for a few months (yeah not long but I lived there) when I was younger it's an absolutely beautiful place (all though not as beautiful as Italy sorry) and I would love to see them get the nod.

Personally id like to see Jaca host, Though its probably gonna go to PyeongChang.

Yeah Munich is a lovely city...but it would be the third European city to host the games consecutively, and is very far from the mountains....I don't think that the games of 2018 will be held in the Alps area for the umpteenth time, I think it is more truthful that they will return to the East from where they're missing since'98...however as we have already noted the decisions don't depend very much on geography but as the quality of a bid

I think that PyeongChang and Munich will be the strongest competitors. Annecy could be a potential black horse whereas Geneva is just awesome lols. But I am betting on PyeongChang. I'm sure the Koreans wouldn't want the reputation of losers on their foreheads forever and I think that they can really pull it off this time. I really like the support of the people, but they need something more spicy to bring to the table

Only thing I see clever about Munich is that according to wiki, they are very close to the IOC Vice President, Thomas Bach(who could be President) which could mean that he could swing the vote to Munich. Munich could really be an ideal place for the games, it already has experience. But at the same time, two olympic games will already be staged in Europe and potentially bring Munich down.

This is an interesting bid for sure. But one thing I'm looking forward to is the 2024 and the 2028 Olympic bids since the Phillipines will be bidding!!!(yea, I know that's a long time lols)

God, 2018 seems so long away. I echo the above posts stating what a beautiful city Munich is, I went there a couple of years a go for a weeding and it was just a fantastic place to be. It felt like a big city, but was a nice enough size that you could wrap your head around it.