Blair hands over secrets to start a new cold war

For the first time since London narrowly won the vote two years ago to become host city for the 2012 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee go to the polls again. On Wednesday they will decide where the 2014 Winter Games will be held, and while normally such an election would attract the interest of one man and a St Bernard, this has the plot of a chilling political thriller.

For the Cold War Games have become hot stuff. And it is all down to London's triumph in Singapore. Summer or winter, now everyone wants a piece of the Olympic action because of the kudos it can generate in terms of profile and prestige.

Significantly, all three bidding venues - PyeongChang, a snow- capped outpost in South Korea, Sochi, the swinging Russian Black Sea playground, and Salzburg, deep in Austria's Sound of Music territory, have taken a leaf out of London's bidding book. All will make platform presentations to the anticipated 102-strong IOC electorate based on Lord Coe's Olympic gameplan of youth, culture and legacy.

Moreover, all will have their biggest guns on parade, hoping to do a Tony Blair. Three national presidents - Russia's Vladimir Putin, Heinz Fisher of Austria and South Korea's Roh Moohyun - are gathering at the IOC session for a Blair-like charm offensive in sultry Guatemala, the Central American republic.

Whisper it softly, but we hear the British have been passing secrets to the Russians in the form of a dossier compiled by Sochi's UK-based advisers on Blair's Singapore tactics, which has been required reading for Putin. His press-fleshing presence could be key, since the IOC are impressed by power as much as by wealth. So Russia's sports-loving president, a skilled skier and judo black belt, is a big player for Sochi, where he has a dacha near Stalin's old summer palace. Putin has made several of Russia's billionaire oligarchs, among them Roman Abramovich, offers they couldn't refuse to help bankroll the rouble-rich bid. Apart from Putin, a host of Russian sports tsars, including former Sochi resident Maria Sharapova, have endorsed a chic resort that is Cannes with caviar.

Like PyeongChang, most of Sochi's proposed Games facilities have yet to be built. Both have attractive mountain backdrops within an hour of the coast. This might just be a Games too soon for Sochi, but the time could be right for tiny PyeongChang (population 46,000), 180km east of Seoul, within loudhailing distance of the North Korean border. It came within three votes of winning the 2010 Games, losing out to Vancouver after a stunned Salzburg were eliminated in the first round. Thanks to Samsung, the town has lavishly rolled out the white carpet to woo the IOC, and according to William Hill they are now odds -on favourites. The sanguine South Koreans argue that winning the Games would be a contribution to world peace, because the North may be persuaded to slalom down "the Alps of Asia" with them in a joint team. Led by an English-educated chairman, Dr Han Seung-soo, the Koreans have had a delegation in London examining how Coe's team operated. Dr Han has also visited Lourdes, "to pray for victory". It may not require a miracle.

Salzburg had no need to look in on London because its spin- meister is Mike Lee, who orchestrated London's communications strategy. The London link runs through this entire scenario, as one of those who worked with Lee, the former Athens 2004 adviser Stratos Safilioleas, is running PyeongChang's international media campaign, while the main man in Sochi's PR set-up is John Tibbs, a Brit who was part of the Paris team who battled it out with London.

Lee is up against it this time, because while Salzburg's low- budget bid has, in the downhill legend Franz Klammer, a leader with similar charisma to his friend Coe, it has been hurt by last year's Turin Games doping scandal, which resulted in lifetime bans for 14 team officials. With Salzburg, what you see now is largely what you would get (11 of the venues already exist) in an established winter wonderland. They claim their rivals have virtual bids, while theirs is reality.

So it looks like a split decision in this winter's tale of three cities in the improbable setting of Guatemala, where, unlike the Games themselves, the argument is likely to be heated.

THREE WONDERLANDS

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA

Outlook: Good. Small but perfectly poised if IOC want to be adventurous, though close to nuclear-testing North.

Winter warmer: Money snow object.

Want to bet? 1-2

SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

Outlook: Bleak. IOC could decide to play safe and stick with tradition, but 2006 doping scandal likely to cost vital votes.

Winter warmer: Klammer charisma.

Want to bet? 4-1

SOCHI, RUSSIA

Outlook: Fair. Risky, as they have it all to do construction- wise, but strong government backing.

Winter warmer: Putin power.

Want to bet? 3-1

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