As he addressed the closing ceremony here at the second CISM World Winter Games in Annecy last week, he moved to reassure people that a host for the third edition of the event will be named soon.

"You'll notice that the CISM flag is not being handed onto the next host of the Winter Games," Malboum (pictured top), who is also President of the Cameroon Olympic Committee and a member of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ruling Council, explained.

"But I would like to reassure you that a host will be found."

Speaking exclusively to insidethegames, Malboum said Slovenia and Norway – who came to observe the Games in Annecy – are already interested in bidding to host the next CISM World Winter Games in 2017, but the organisation is keen to attract further interested parties.

Similarly, the 2019 World Summer Games, which will follow the 2015 edition in South Korea, already has two nations interested in bidding - Qatar and Azerbaijan, but Malboum says the organisation will promote the events at CISM's next general assembly in Jakarta in May.

He also said the events are an attractive option to those cities that perhaps do not have the capacity to yet host an Olympic Games.

"We are opening our Games to the cities that would like to bid to host them," Malboum explained.

"They can use the support of the armed forces and it is open to any city.

"There are many cities that want to host major events in the world and sometimes they don't have the right event, they maybe cannot host the Olympic Games or the football World Cup, so those who are interested in our games we are ready to support them."

Malboum went on to explain the bidding process, which follows a similar model that of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), where the nation makes a formal intention to bid before it is evaluated by the board of directors, with the host being named after it is selected at the CISM general assembly by a secret vote.

But he said that one of the most significant deciding factors for the board is the amount of support - both nationally and locally - the Games has during bidding.


"We had two candidates for these Games – Sochi and Annecy," he told insidethegames.

"Sochi wanted the Games as a test event for 2014 and Annecy wanted the event to prepare the bid for 2018.

"But we made a decision on Annecy because we got a very strong support from the President of France [Nicolas Sarkozy].

"Having a letter from the President we sent the Evaluation Committee here and they realised that the community is supporting the Games, the government is supporting, the armed forces is supporting, the local community is supporting and it was not the same for Sochi so we decided to come here."

Deadlines for the expressions of interest have yet to be announced but CISM says it will start looking into bids as cities come forward.

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