Germany geared to fully back Munich Olympic bid, says Merkel

By Sven Busch Mar 3, 2011, 19:37 GMT

Munich - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday said her country is ready to give its full support to Munich's bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The bid has the full support of the 'city, state and federation,' she said before adressing the evaluation commission of the International Olympic Committee on the final night of their visit to the German bidder.

'We have every chance, after the summer fairy tale we have with the (2006) World Cup to now have a winter fairy tale,' she said before going into the meeting.

The chancellor is a staunch supporter of Munich's bid and has also given the necessary government financial guarantees.

'I think the world would be overjoyed if we got to host the games,' she added.

Earlier Thursday, a survey said that 73 per cent of Germans welcome Olympic in Munich and officials around the bid also presented figures to the 11-strong IOC team headed by Gunilla Lindberg of Sweden.

Olympics in Munich can generate up to 3.4 billion euros (4.7 billion dollars) in extra income for Germany, more than the proposed Olympic costs of 3.2 billion euros.

Officials also pledged that 65 per cent of the 1.8 million tickets tickets will be in the range of 33 to 140 million euros, with total ticket income named at 178 million euros.

Munich is bidding for the 2018 Games along with Annecy, France, and Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The evaluation commission report is scheduled to be released in June. It is regarded as technical assessment of each bidder to help IOC members who will elect the 2018 host on July 6 in Durban.

There have been protests against Munich's campaign, mainly in the proposed ski event site of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which opponents rate too small to host an event of such magnitude. A group of farmers in the ski resort are also refusing to give up land for events.

The IOC team met with opponents on Tuesday, but a survey by the YouGov company on behalf of the German Press Agency dpa said that almost three quarters of Germans want the Games to come to Munich.

The survey, conducted among 1,006 Germans Monday to Wednesday, said that 15 per cent oppose Games in the city which hosted the 1972 Summer Olympics, while 12 per cent are undecided.

Support was highest at 76 per cent in the 25-34 age group while 16-24-year-olds had a 73 per cent support rate.

However, 90 per cent of the surveyed reject a special tax to hold the Games and 43 per cent believe that Olympics are not possible without some intervention in nature.

The IOC will also conduct its own survey as part of the evaluation. The evaluation team arrived in Germany on Monday and the tour ends on Friday.

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