Candidates wait on IOC decision on 2018 Games

* Munich, Annecy, Pyeongchang await verdict

* Cities make final pitches for 2018 Winter Games
(Updates after city presentations)
By Paul Radford
DURBAN, July 6 (Reuters) - Munich, Annecy and Pyeongchang, the candidates contesting the right to host the 2018 Winter Games, made their final pitches to the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday and waited anxiously for the verdict.
The IOC was due to begin voting later on Wednesday with a result due to be announced by the organisation’s president Jacques Rogge shortly after 1500 GMT.
Pyeongchang is widely seen as the favourite ahead of Munich with Annecy viewed as the outsider.
Each of the three candidate cities had just over an hour to present its case to the 103 IOC members attending the Durban session.
Munich opened its bid under the slogan “Festival of Friendship”, emphasising its desire to welcome the world to Bavaria and to show visitors and competitors its long established winter traditions and hospitality.
The German city, aiming to become the first to stage a Summer and a Winter Games, would use many of the venues built for the 1972 Olympics for ice events with the Alpine resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, one hour away, becoming the mountain events centre.
The German President Christian Wulff and former Bayern Munich libero Franz Beckenbauer were part of the bid team and leader Katarina Witt, the former Olympic figure skating champion, introduced a yodeller to spice up their plea.
“Tradition matters as much as innovation for us,” Witt said.
Annecy, the French alpine holiday centre, made a fairly low-key presentation under the slogan “Snow, Ice and You”.
The French bid also leaned on its winter sports traditions, notably the ski resort of Chamonix, hosts of the first Winter Games in 1924 and the mountain centre of their bid.
“France is proud to be the birthplace of Pierre de Coubertin (founder of the IOC) and of having hosted the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924,” Denis Massegilla, president of France’s Olympic Committee, said during the presentation.
Former athlete Guy Drut reinforced the view. “Annecy will stage games true to the Winter Games spirit in an exceptional mountain city in a country with a strongest commitment to Olympism,” he said.
NEW HORIZONS
Pyeongchang’s slogan “New Horizons” made the most of the fact that South Korea has never hosted a Winter Olympics and that the Games had only been to Asia twice before—both in Japan.
The bid team also emphasised the message that they were bidding for the third time in a row and that, after failing narrowly twice, they felt their time had come.
“Pyeongchang 2018 is a national priority of the Korean government and has been so for the last 10 years,” South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak told IOC members.
“I guarantee you the full and unconditional support of the Korean government,” Lee said. “We will make you proud.”
The IOC’s evaluation commission was due to present its report to the session before voting starts.
To win a candidate would need more than 50 percent of the votes cast. Ninety-five members are eligible to vote in the first round, which means 48 votes would be needed to win outright.
Should no candidate achieve that figure, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated and a second round would be held with the remaining two.
In the event of a tie, Rogge, who does not vote on the regular ballots, would make the casting vote.