2018 Winter Olympics bid field smallest ever

The three candidates from France, Germany and South Korea all made the cut Tuesday when the IOC announced the finalists to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Annecy, France; Munich, Germany; and Pyeongchang, South Korea, were all elevated to official candidate city status after a review by the International Olympic Committee executive board.

The IOC approved Munich and Pyeongchang without any reservations, but said Annecy should review its sports venue plans.

"The executive board decided that all three applicant cities deserved to move to the second phase of the bidding procedure," IOC Olympic Games executive director Gilbert Felli said. "It has been made clear, however, that Annecy needed to review its project."

The full IOC will select the 2018 host city by secret ballot at its session in Durban, South Africa, on July 6, 2011.

In past bid races, the IOC has cut the field of cities at this stage. But with only three candidates this time, the smallest field in three decades, there was no pressure to drop any of the cities.

The three cities have been campaigning on a low-key basis since October when they applied to host the games. Now, as official bid cities, they can launch more visible international lobbying efforts.

Pyeongchang seen as the front-runner

Pyeongchang, bidding for a third consecutive time, is seen as the front-runner, with Munich as the main challenger and Annecy as the outsider.

The 15-member executive board acted on a recommendation from an IOC working group that studied the cities' replies to a detailed questionnaire on key issues.

The IOC did not rank the bids Tuesday, but will publish a report that compares the cities on various technical grounds.

The finalists will have to submit their detailed bid proposals to the IOC by Jan. 11, 2011. An IOC evaluation commission will visit each city next year and issue a report assessing the bids a month before the final vote.

It's the smallest original field of Winter Games bids since 1981, then three finalists competed for the 1988 Olympics, which were awarded to Calgary. There were seven bids for the 1992 Games, four for 1994, six for 1998, nine for 2002 (cut to four finalists), six for 2006, eight for 2010 (pared to four finalists) and seven for 2014 (reduced to three finalists).

Pyeongchang, located in the Alpensia Mountains east of Seoul, is back again after narrowly losing out to Vancouver for the 2010 Games and to Sochi, Russia, for the 2014 Games. Korean organizers say they have learned from those defeats and claim their games will be the most compact in history. The bid is led by Korean Air chairman Cho Yang-ho.

Munich, which staged the 1972 Summer Olympics, aims to become the first city to host both the summer and winter games. Led by former skier and filmmaker Willy Bogner and two-time figure skating gold medallist Katarina Witt, the Bavarian bid proposes holding ice events in Munich and snow competitions in the mountain resorts of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Koenigssee. Garmisch hosted the Winter Games in 1936.

The Savoy lakeside resort of Annecy is making its first Olympic bid, although France has staged the Winter Games three times — Chamonix 1924, Grenoble 1968 and Albertville 1992. Annecy, led by former moguls gold medallist Edgar Grospiron, proposes using eight ski resorts around Mont Blanc, including Chamonix, Megève and Morzine.