Home away from home, Olympic style
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA — From getting a haircut or your nails done to playing video games or learning about Korean culture, the athletes villages at the 2018 Winter Olympics provide distraction from the stress of competition.
One village is located amid the Coastal Cluster in the beach resort town of Gangneung. The other is in the Mountain Cluster surrounded by winter resorts. Together they are home to up to 2,920 athletes as well as coaches and other team officials. Staying in the village is not a requirement. The U.S. Alpine team, for example, arranged for its own accommodations.
On Tuesday, both villages were open to the media for a few hours with plenty of restrictions, mainly: stay out of the residential areas unless specifically invited.
USA Today visited the Pyeongchang Olympic Village in the mountains. The facility is a combination of new highrise apartments, temporary buildings and an older, round sports arena generally used for skating but now serving as the main eating area for athletes and coaches. There is an Asian Station, Korean Station and World Station where athletes have their choice of foods. This village has everything the coastal village has except one thing: a McDonald’s.
From a brief foray into the village, here are some of the more interesting areas:
Entrance Plaza: On Tuesday, it was the site of a series of welcoming ceremonies for the competing countries. One of the highlights was the Nigerian women’s bobsled team dancing and celebrating. The plaza includes flags of the represented countries. As windy as it is here, the flags are in constant motion, almost as if they are waving as athletes walk by.
Also there are two makeshift walls with a bridge in between. Athletes are asked to sign their names to one of the walls to promote “Olympic Truce and a peaceful world.”
Olympic Village Plaza: A temporary facility that includes a general store, souvenir shop, bank and post office. But the busiest spot was “The Beauty Shop,” where a haircut costs 15,000 South Korean won for men (about $13.80 US) and 17,000 for women ($15.64 US). Other services from colouring to manicures are available. Tuesday afternoon, every chair was filled.
Next store is the Korean Culture exhibit, basically a minimuseum touting the host country’s history and heritage.
Visitors are free to try on a hanbok, a “unique costume that our nation has worn from ancient times.”
The women’s version usually features a jacket and a long, wide skirt. Men wear basically pyjama-like pants and a robe.
At the other end of the building is a virtual-reality ride sponsored by Samsung. Called “Winter Ride,” it simulates skiing, bobsledding and snowboarding.
But perhaps the most interesting of all the sites is athletes from all over the world, wearing their team colours, mingling with each other, clearly enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and sharing the experience.