For those of us who spend our winters in and around the Savoire and Tarrentaise regions will be keeping our fingers crossed for Annecy, one of the three 2018 Winter Olympics candidates, the other two being Munich and Pyeongchang in South Korea. The latter sadly is the front runner and not helped by the IOC representatives arriving in Europe during the worstsnow drought in decades whereas their visit to South Koreas coincided with 60cm of fresh snow!

Whilst I agree with the idea of spreading the Olympic love in new regions and places, surely this should however be in places that are easily accessible to a wide audience? What really has South Korea got to offer Olympians and more importantly us, the spectators?

Annecy in contrast has so much. One of the prettiest towns in Europe, its historic buildings and large lake provide the perfect setting on a winters day. It is also just 30 minutes from Geneva airport, 45 minutes from Chambery and 75 minutes from Lyon airport making it pretty much within 2 hours flight time of virtually all of Europe. It won't just bring revenue in to Annecy too, La Plagne would stage the Bobsliegh, Luge and Skeleton, whilst Chamonix would host the skiing and the hockey.

Sadly the public who really matter can't vote and therefore expect the decision to be based more on "jolly's" and other more dubious factors than the good of Olympian tradition and need. We won't therefore hold our breath but might still cross our fingers!