South Korea agonizes over post-Games costs No fish

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — South Korean officials have ruled out turning a state-of-the-art Olympic skating arena into a giant seafood freezer. Other than that, not much is certain about the country’s post-Winter Games plans for a host of expensive venues.

As officials prepare for the games in and around the small mountain town of Pyeongchang, there are lingering worries over the huge financial burden facing one of the nation’s poorest regions. Local officials hope that the Games will provide a badly needed economic boost by marking the area as a world-class tourist destination.

But past experience shows that hosts who justified their Olympics with expectations of financial windfalls were often left deeply disappointed when the fanfare ended.

This isn’t lost on Gangwon province, which governs Pyeongchang and nearby Gangneung, a seaside city that will host Olympic skating and hockey events. Officials there are trying hard to persuade the national government to pay to maintain new stadiums that will have little use once the athletes leave. Seoul, however, is so far balking at the idea.

The Olympics, which will begin Feb. 9, will cost South Korea about 14 trillion won ($12.9 billion), much more than the 8 to 9 trillion won ($7 to 8 billion) the country projected as the overall cost when Pyeongchang won the bid in 2011.

Worries over costs have cast a shadow over the games among residents long frustrated with what they say were decades of neglect in a region that doesn’t have much going The Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium is still under construction in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The Olympics will begin Feb. 9.

Foreign diplomats and officials of the U.S. Forces Korea visit the Gangneung Oval during a venue tour for the upcoming 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games.

on other than domestic tourism and fisheries.

“What good will a nicely managed global event really do for residents when we are struggling File, Ahn Young-joon / AP

so much to make ends meet?” said Lee Do-sung, a Gangneung restaurant owner. “What will the games even leave? Maybe only debt.” File, Ahn Young-joon / AP

Despite more than a decade of planning, Gangwon remains unsure what to do with the Olympic facilities it will keep.

Winter sports facilities are often harder to maintain than summer ones because of the higher costs for maintaining ice and snow and the usually smaller number of people they attract.

That’s especially true in South Korea, which doesn’t have a strong winter sports culture.

Not all ideas are welcome.

Gangwon officials say they never seriously considered a proposal to convert the 8,000-seat Gangneung Oval, the Olympic speed skating venue, into a refrigerated warehouse for seafood.

Officials were unwilling to have frozen fish as part of their Olympic legacy.

Gangwon officials also dismissed a theme park developer’s suggestion to make the stadium a gambling venue where people place bets on skating races, citing the country’s strict laws and largely negative view of gambling.

A plan to have the 10,000-capacity Gangneung Hockey Center host a corporate league hockey team fell apart.

Even worse off are Pyeongchang’s bobsleigh track, ski jump hill and the biathlon and crosscountry skiing venues, which were built for sports South Koreans are largely uninterested in.

After its final inspection visit in August, the International Olympic Committee warned Pyeongchang’s organizers that they risked creating white elephants from Olympic venues, though it didn’t offer specific suggestions for what to do differently.