After Rio, Olympics headed for Asian venues seen as safe
BEIJING (AP) — For the Olympics, it’s so-long Rio, hello Asia.
The next three Olympics are headed for relatively calmer ports of call in South Korea, Japan and China following the organizational drama surrounding the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia and the just completed Summer Games in Brazil, although challenges remain, especially when it comes to finances and generating enthusiasm among home audiences. A look ahead to the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. All three countries have hosted the Olympics before and enjoy a shared reputation for prosperity and a deft hand at organizing major events. things to work out before they host Ridgeland Friday to open the regular season.
“I think we’re still having too many negative plays offensively,” Hurst said. “We had some tonight and a couple of them were our fault, so that’s something we’ve got to change. We (coaches) are scrimmaging just like the kids are, so we’ve got to get the kinks out.” Games to position itself as a major Asian winter sports destination.
However, preparations for Pyeongchang 2018 have been noticeably less smooth than when South Korea’s capital Seoul hosted the Summer Games in 1988. Organizers struggling with construction delays, local conflicts over venue construction and difficulties attracting domestic sponsorships. Such problems were easily avoided 30 years ago when the country’s then-military dictatorship steamrolled any opposition.
Even so, six new competition venues are about 80 percent complete, and a new high-speed rail line, designed to link the country’s main gateway of Incheon airport with Pyeongchang in 90 minutes, will be up and running by January 2018.
Despite a slow start, organizers say 90 percent of the domestic sponsorship target of $760 million will be met at the end of the year, when another round of test events will begin at Olympic venues.
If the 1988 Summer Olympics marked the nation’s arrival on the world stage as a modern industrialized economy and fully fledged democracy, the significance of the Pyeongchang games for South Korea is harder to pinpoint. The country is currently ranked the world’s 11th largest economy by the International Monetary Fund and boasts a remarkable level of political stability despite the threat from communist North Korea. There is little obvious craving among the public for the recognition that large sports events bring.
Excitement for the games has been tempered by concerns over the enormous costs involved, both for preparing and staging the Games and for maintaining the new facilities that might find little use once the party leaves town.
Gangwon province, which governs Pyeongchang and drove the efforts to win the Games, has quarreled with the central government over who should pay the Olympic bills, which are now estimated at nearly $12 billion. The government has been eager to save money, but failed to convince Pyeongchang organizers and area residents to move some competitions and the opening and closing ceremonies to existing stadiums in other cities.
Generating buzz is also a challenge because South Korea doesn’t have a large footing in winter sports. While the country is competitive in speed skating, it remains a virtual unknown in skiing, snowboarding and ice hockey. It had an iconic winter sports figure in Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-na, but she has retired and involved with Pyeongchang only as an honorary ambassador.
Yet optimists say the Olympics will bring muchneeded infrastructure to one of South Korea’s lessdeveloped regions, which could become a winter sports destination for Asian tourists.
“Pyeongchang is not all green lights at this point. It will be and it’s a very able country,” IOC member Dick Pound of Canada said recently when asked if the IOC can relax now that Rio is out of the way and three Asian cities next.
But Tokyo has the advantage of being a city that is in most senses already complete. There’s no mad rush to build subway lines, or, as for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, elevated highways to unsnarl traffic. It’s also one of the safest major cities in the world.
Japan hopes the Olympics will boost tourism and the economy, as well as show off the country’s technology, from driverless cars to super-sharp 8K television.
Ballooning costs remain an issue: Japanese media in December put the figure at about $18 billion, although organizers have not confirmed that. Newly elected Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike has pledged to rein in costs, writing in a recent newspaper column that her team must become worldclass cost accountants so that the Olympics don’t hobble future generations with debt and mar Tokyo’s skyline with white elephants.
Some events have already been moved to existing facilities in the suburbs to avoid the cost of building new ones. The competition sites are spread around Tokyo and the surrounding area, rather than being in Olympic parks.
“It’s going to need a lot of careful planning to get people from venue to venue,” said IOC Vice President John Coates. “It’s a more complex situation than Rio. On the positive side they have a very good transport infrastructure that connects all parts of the city. I think they’re up for it, no worry about that, but you can’t say it’s going be easy.”
And then there’s the heat. Tokyo in August is famously hot and humid, similar to Washington, D.C., and organizers are busy devising ways to keep athletes and fans cool. The 1964 Tokyo Games were held in October.