(ATR) The Annecy bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics suffers a new blow: resignation of its CEO.
Edgar Grospiron submitted his surprise resignation at what is described as "a very long" meeting of the bid supervisory board that approved a two million euro budget increase.
Grospiron said the increase was not enough; he had been seeking as much as 10 million euros more.
In comments to Associated Press, supervisory board chair Christian Monteil said Grospiron’s resignation was not anticipated.
"It was a surprise, we didn't expect this," said Monteil.
Grospiron had led the bid since its inception, becoming the public face of the campaign. An Annecy native, Grospiron was the gold medalist at the 1992 Albertville Olympics, not far from Annecy.
His departure follows the re-working of the venue plan for the bid in the wake of an IOC critique last June and some shaky presentations from Annecy to international meetings in the past two months.
Last week, comments reported in L’Equipe from French IOC members Jean-Claude Killy and Guy Drut indicated that they believed Annecy was behind PyeongChang and Munich in the race for the 2018 Winter Games. They said more money was needed to stay in the race.
Friday, Grospiron and other bid leaders met with the new French minister of sport, appointed just last month. Reportedly Chantal Jouanno told Annecy officials she would try to help find private sector support for the bid – once an international strategy is clearly defined.
The Annecy press release, bravely headlined "Annecy 2018 stays on course for victory", recounts the list of attendees of the meeting Sunday, a group that included Killy.
"Together, they reviewed the bid's progress and decided to pull out all the stops to strengthen its international promotion strategy, with the ultimate aim of victory in Durban on 6th July next year," says the statement, which then goes on to try dispel the notion that the French bid might be abandoned.
"Following a very long session, the Annecy 2018 Supervisory Board confirmed its ambition to pursue the Frenchbid to host the Winter Olympic Games. In view of the tremendous contribution it makes to promoting the region and endorsing Olympic values, the French bid confirmed that it will be submitting its Bid Book to the IOC on 11th January," says the Annecy statement.
The brief press release only mentions Grospiron’s resignation in the final line of thestatement.
"Furthermore, the Supervisory Board officially acknowledged Edgar Grospiron's desire to relinquish his responsibilities as CEO, while remaining available to serve the bid," says the statement, with no further explanation.
"Of course it's very hard, we've never really been the favorite," Monteil told AP about the travails of the Annecy bid. "We've never given up, we want to win [and] we won't give up."
There's now word yet on who will take the CEO post at Annecy.
Written by Ed Hula.
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