S. Korea upbeat on 2018 bid

The people of the South Korean mountain resort of Pyeongchang are upbeat about their bid to stage the 2018 Winter Olympics – and hope it will be third time lucky.

After two failed bids to host the Winter Games and $1.5 billion already spent on facilities, some residents yesterday described a visit by International Olympic Committee assessors as the “last chance” for their sporting dream.

Pyeongchang lost out to Vancouver for the 2010 event and to Russia’s Sochi for 2014, but locals say this time they are better prepared.

“We are confident of victory,” taxi driver Chung Jun-Ha, 52, told AFP in the town, where the streets were hung with hundreds of colourful banners and flags.

“This is our last chance. We’re so well prepared that we cannot think of losing this time.”

Chung said he thought the 14-member IOC team must have been impressed by “our aspiration and efforts” to turn Pyeongchang into a world-class resort town since its first bid almost a decade ago.

The alpine resort, 180 kilometres east of Seoul, is competing against Annecy, in France, and Munich, in Germany, with the winner to be announced on July 6.

“Yes, Pyeongchang! We will win,” read a banner on a road leading up to Alpensia, where IOC inspectors have been staying for their four-day evaluation which began on Wednesday.

Alpensia, the main venue with ski slopes, hotels, restaurants, golf courses and a convention centre, would host events such as the ski jump, cross country and biathlon.

Pyeongchang has invested $1.5 billion to build facilities and seven out of the 13 necessary sites are already in place, with all venues within 30 minutes of each other.

Thousands of citizens waved flags and chanted “Yes, Pyeongchang!” as the IOC team visited the nearby port of Gangneung, which would host the skating and hockey events.

Kim Mi-Hee, a 59-year-old restaurant owner, said Pyeong-chang had transformed itself in recent years into a modern town with tall apartment buildings and fancy hotels alongside spectacular snow-covered mountains.

“Hosting the Winter Olympics is our unending dream. Several years ago, this place was like a small country town. You can see how different it is now,” she said, adding that thousands of residents would hold a send-off ceremony tomorrow for the IOC team.

Many locals were cheered by positive comments from South Korean officials, after two days of presentations and trips through Pyeong-chang and Gangneung.

Ha Do-Bong, bidding committee secretary general, told reporters that some IOC members gave the thumbs-up to the preparations.

“Compared to our two earlier bids, the atmosphere was very positive and we received a lot of ovations,” he said.

South Korea is vigorously pursuing its third world sporting event after the 1988 Games and the 2002 football World Cup, which was co-hosted with Japan.

It says it is time the Winter Games return to Asia, which has hosted the event only twice – at Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998, both in Japan.