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Munich officially launched a bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games Wednesday at International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne Switzerland.

Thomas Bach, head of the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB) and IOC Vice President said, "the starting gun has been fired - Munich is signed up for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. We are pleased that Munich, with a compact, innovative and sustainable approach (is) going into the race. The shareholders, the Supervisory Board, the Board, the Sports Ambassadors and the entire team (are) behind the application. The spark of enthusiasm for the application should now also skip to the population".

Munich's Mayor Christian Ude said, "the City of Munich will be working at full strength for the success of the application. We want to share with our approach, especially in terms of ecology and sustainability of new Olympic standards".

The regions of Garmish-Partenkirchen and Berchtesgaden are also part of Munich's 2018 bid.

The application file and guarantee letters must be sent to the IOC by March 15, 2010 and the IOC Executive Board will accept the candidate cities by the end of June 2010.

The IOC Evaluation Commission will then visit the candidate cities in February and March of 2011, with its report due one month before the election of the host city in Durban.

Meanwhile, although the U.S. Olympic Committee doesn't plan to put a 2018 bid together because there isn't enough time before the October 15 deadline, the Wall Street Journal reports a spokesman for the Reno-Tahoe Winter Games Coalition still hopes to persuade the committee to change its mind.

Jon Killoran said, "so unless there's some kind of about face very quickly, then a 2018 opportunity is not what we would be working toward. We'd be working toward a 2022 opportunity".

(Source: Gamesbids.com)