Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
S. Koreans worry about Olympics’ cost
S. Koreans agonize over costs as some fear no benefits
For many in poorer regions, worries over costs have cast a shadow over the Games.
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 postWinter 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 to persuade the national government to pay to maintain new stadiums that will have little use once the athletes leave. Seoul is balking at the idea.
The Olympics, which begin Feb. 9, will cost South Korea about $12.9 billion.
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 on other than domestic tourism and fisheries.
“What good will a nicely managed global event really do for residents when we are struggling so much to make ends meet?” said Lee Do-sung, a Gangneung restaurant owner. “What will the games even leave? Maybe only debt.”
The atmosphere was starkly different three decades ago when grand preparations for the 1988 Seoul Summer Games essentially shaped the capital into the modern metropolis it is today.
A massive sports complex and huge public parks emerged alongside the city’s Han River. Next came new highways, bridges and subway lines. Forests of highrise buildings rose above the bulldozed ruins of old commercial districts and slums.
The legacy of the country’s second Olympics will be less clear. It could be remembered more for things dismantled than built.
Pyeongchang’s picturesque Olympic Stadium — a pentagonal 35,000-seat arena in a county of 40,000 people — will be used only for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics and Paralympics before workers tear it down.
A scenic downhill course in nearby Jeongseon also will be demolished to restore the area to its natural state. Fierce criticism by environmentalists over the venue being built on a pristine forest sacred to locals caused construction delays that nearly forced pre-Olympic test events to be postponed.
Gangwon officials want the national government to share costs for rebuilding the forest, which could be as much as $95 million.
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.
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 cross-country skiing venues, which were built for sports South Koreans are largely uninterested in.
The International Olympic Committee in August 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.
A cautionary tale comes from Athens, which was left with a slew of abandoned stadiums after the 2004 Summer Games that some say contributed to Greece’s financial meltdown.
Some Olympic venues have proved to be too costly to maintain. The $100 million luge and bobsled track built in Turin for the 2006 games was later dismantled because of high operating costs. Pyeongchang will be only the second Olympic host to dismantle its ceremonial Olympic Stadium immediately after the games — the 1992 Winter Olympics host Albertville did so as well.
Gangwon has demanded that the national government in Seoul pay for maintaining at least four Olympic facilities after the Games — the speed skating arena, hockey center, bobsleigh track and ski jump hill. This would save the province about 6 billion won ($5.5 million) a year, according to Park Cheol-sin, a Gangwon official. which were brought to South Korea after bids driven by the national government, the provincial government led the bid for the Pyeongchang games and it did so without any commitment from Seoul over footing the bill.
Under current plans, Gangwon will be managing at least six Olympic facilities after the games.
These facilities will create a 9.2 billion won ($8.5 million) deficit for the province every year.
Hong Jin-won, a Gangneung resident and activist who has been monitoring Olympic preparations for years, said the real deficit could be even bigger. He said that could mean welfare spending gets slashed to help make up the lack of money.