December 24, 2007	Monday	Zilhaj 13, 1428

BERLIN, Dec 23: Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has welcomed Munich’s bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

“Naturally, I am very pleased to have such a strong and competent bid from Munich in a strong sporting nation such as Germany,” Rogge told Sunday’s edition of German newspaper Die Welt.

“Germany has a good vision, and it learned from the failure of Leipzig and strengthened it’s bid.”

In recent years, Germany has twice missed out on hosting summer Olympic Games when Berlin was beaten by Sydney for the right to host the 2000 event while Leipzig was beaten by London for the 2012 tournament.

But the 65-year-old Belgian says Munich will not be disadvantaged by not being a capital city.

“We look at the cities with potential, that radiate enthusiasm – much like Munich.”

Munich’s bid proposes that the 2018 Winter Olympics be spread across three sites.

Munich would host the ice events including figure-skating and ice hockey, while Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics, would stage the snow events.

And the luge, bobsleigh and skeleton events would be entrusted to Schoenau.

Germany last staged an Olympics in 1972 when Munich hosted the summer games and, if successful, would be the first city to host both winter and summer events.

The other city set to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics is the South Korean city of Pyeongchang, who just missed out for the 2010 and 2014 editions.

The decision on who hosts the 2018 games will be made in 2011.—AFP