It has become one of the International Olympic Committee's more endearing habits to choose its Winter Olympic hosts in the most incongruous places imaginable.

Thus, four years ago, the choice of Sochi to stage the 2014 Winter Games was made in tropical Guatemala.

And this week's selection of the 2018 Host City has brought us to Durban.

With its flat urban thoroughfares, palm-fringed beach-front and climate mild enough for South African surfers to be out frolicking in the Indian Ocean breakers even in midwinter, this long-overlooked city has about as much in common with a classical Winter Olympic setting as, well, Munich has in common with Pyeongchang.

Perhaps it is just me, but I find it hard to focus on the finer points of the three competing speed-skating venues when they're playing beach volleyball outside.

On the other hand, perhaps the California-esque backdrop – along with a certain wedding that has taken many heavy hitters to Monaco – helps to account for the rather flat atmosphere which, as I write this on Sunday afternoon, still overhangs the three-cornered contest pitting the aforementioned Munich and Pyeongchang against France's Annecy, seen almost universally as the long-odds outsider.

My most exciting moment to date came at about 8.30pm last night, witnessing the arrival of Lee Myung-bak (pictured below right), the South Korean President, and extensive entourage, at the beach-front hotel housing the bidding cities.


My most surprising came immediately afterwards when I saw that the sleek dark car parked outside the door, with South Korean flag fluttering, appeared to be of Bavarian manufacture.

That plus today, when I thought I saw a couple of bid team members hurry across the foyer loaded up with electric blankets.

Then again, it does turn chilly at night here.

I wrote in February that I would be surprised if Pyeongchang did not win.

Now within hours of the July 6 vote, I still see them as the most likely victors.

But Munich is putting up a good fight.


The German city has a strong ecological card to play, is impeccably connected, via Thomas Bach, whom many observers see as the next IOC President and is, perhaps, the IOC's best chance of putting on a truly blockbuster event to revive what many of us still see as a distinctly second-division sporting property.

Then again, there is no escaping the fact that the Winter Games has yet to visit Asia – fast-becoming the key business-zone in the world for multinational companies in search of growth – in the 21st century.

And while few non-Asians would have heard of Pyeongchang if it weren't for its efforts to win the Olympics, the Korean candidate should know the drill, having lost out consecutively to Vancouver and Sochi.

If they do not win here, it can safely be said it will not be for lack of manpower, with the main Olympic gathering-points at times taking on the appearance of Seoul-by-the-Sea.

The IOC had better hope that the flat atmosphere is a by-product of the South African sun.

The other theme starting to emerge here is the surprising paucity of candidates for the 2020 race to follow Rio de Janeiro in hosting the main event, the Summer Games.

Rome is in; Tokyo, Istanbul and at least one Middle East candidate look likely to follow, though there remains doubts.

And, for the moment, although more bidders, most notably from Europe, may emerge in coming days, that looks to be about it.

Many of us were thrown when the South African Government announced in May that it would not be bidding, hence apparently thwarting any prospect that Durban may have had of following a successful staging of this IOC Session with a strong Olympic bid.

There have since been suggestions that it could yet change its mind - but it has only until September 1 to do so.

Unusually, there seems next to no chance of a US bid.

If the 2020 race-card does not fill out, I am starting to wonder if we won't come to regard Durban as the beginning of the end of a golden age of Olympic bidding, brought to a close, in large part, by the crisis still affecting big chunks of the global economy.

For now, this is only a tentative conclusion.

There is still time for both these races – one on its final lap, the other not yet officially under way - to liven up.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938