PARIS, 12 July 2003 — Anger, despair and frustration are just some of the reactions to the IOC’s ‘phantom’ votes that play havoc with cities bidding to win the right to host the Olympics. Two weeks after the IOC gave the 2010 Winter Games to Vancouver the dust has still not settled as the losing cities, Salzburg and Pyeongchang attempt to understand why it all went so wrong.

Pyeongchang nearly pulled off what would have been the biggest upset in Games history by winning the first round and coming up only three votes short of an overall majority.

What was supposed to be a run-off in the second and final round between Vancouver and Salzburg, suddenly saw the South Korea underdogs going head-to-head against the Canadian giant while Salzburg, with only 16 first round votes, was left to lick its wounds.

“Votes that were promised to us never materialized,” Salzburg bid chief Egon Winkler told AFP yesterday.

“Members from Latin America and Africa told us we would have their vote. In the end our 16 all came from Europe I suspect,” he added. “Before the vote I was expecting we could count on getting 40-45.”

In Korea, a war of words has broken out between Pyeongchang and newly elected IOC Vice-President Kim Un-yong with opponents to Kim claiming he cost them the chance to win the IOC’s most glittering winter prize.

Heavy pressure had been put on Kim not to stand for the vice-presidency in case it would rebound on Pyeongchang. South Korean Prime Minister Goh Gun was one of those who urged Kim not to run for the IOC job.

“Such a desire has been conveyed as part of my request for him to devote himself to the country’s successful bid for the Winter Olympics,” Goh told Parliament earlier this week.

But IOC members and observers are amazed that Pyeongchang is blaming Kim for their defeat.

“Without Kim’s presence and the support he has within the IOC Pyeonchang would not have come anywhere near the 51 votes they got in the first round. They don’t seem to grasp that the vote for the 2010 Games and the election for the executive board two days later are simply not linked,” said a South Asian IOC member.

Winkler, who saw the 2010 battle from the inside, said he was baffled by Pyeonchang’s attack on the 72-year-old Kim.

“Pyeongchang got about the same number of votes as Kim got in his election. Surely that tells Pyeongchang something. Most of their votes were thanks to Kim, not in spite of,” said Winkler.

The South Koreans and Salzburg got their pre-vote count wrong. Even victorious Vancouver got it wrong. The Canadians thought they had got backing from South America. Instead, at least half of South America went to Pyeonchang.

Two IOC members, one from Latin America and one from eastern Europe promised their vote to all three bidding cities. “These phantom votes cause havoc. Cities do their count and it is nearly always over-optimistic,” one senior consultant to bid cities told AFP.

“The Koreans don’t know how lucky they were to get as many votes as they got. IOC members were stunned after the first round result,” explained the consultant.

With the battle for the 2012 Summer Games starting to heat up as Rio, Paris, London, New York, Leipzig, Madrid, Istanbul, Moscow and Havana chase the Games the only thing certain is that when the decision is made in 2005 the IOC’s phantom voters will continue to wreak havoc.