OLYMPICS:

Entrepreneur Beigbeder to head Annecy 2018 Olympic bid

Jan. 7, 2011 — The Canadian Press 

ARCUEIL, France — French businessman Charles Beigbeder was chosen Friday as the new leader of Annecy's struggling bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Former Olympic moguls skiing gold medallist Edgar Grospiron resigned as bid chief last month, saying he wasn't given enough money to compete with rival candidates Munich and Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The head of the Annecy supervisory board, Christian Monteil, told The Associated Press that Beigbeder was nominated as a replacement and accepted the offer.

Monteil discussed the choice Friday with France's sports minister, Chantal Jouanno, who told reporters "this candidacy has my support" and that of the presidential palace.

Jouanno said the bid would benefit from being led by an accomplished entrepreneur, and that Beigbeder's appointment would be formalized Monday.

The Annecy team will submit its official bid book next week to the International Olympic Committee. An IOC evaluation group will visit the venues in February.

The full IOC will select the 2018 host city in a vote on July 6 in Durban, South Africa.

Beigbeder is a prominent entrepreneur in France. In 2002 he founded Poweo, the first challenger to state-owned electric monopoly EDF, in a bid to open the sector up to more competition. He also founded one of France's first online brokerages, Self Trade, and serves on the board of France's business lobby Medef.

Annecy has been the outsider from the start of the 2018 campaign and barely made the list of three finalists last June when the IOC criticized the bid's spread-out venues. Since then, Annecy officials have revamped their plans with a more centralized project centered around Annecy and Chamonix.

Should the French Alpine town be chosen, it would be the fourth French city to host the Winter Games. The last was Albertville in 1992. Chamonix and Grenoble were previous hosts.  S-Magazine