Bach ‘confident’ S. Korea Winter Games on track
SEOUL, Aug 19, (Agencies): Olympics chief Thomas Bach said Wednesday that South Korean preparations for the 2018 Winter Games were firmly back on track after initial concerns over construction delays, funding woes and sponsor indifference.
“There has been great progress made since my last visit,” the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president told reporters following meetings in Seoul with organisers of the Games to be held in the mountain resort of Pyeongchang. German city of Munich and the French Alpine town of Annecy.
But the project soon ran into trouble and, by the time Cho took over, venues were behind schedule, sponsors were nowhere to be found and the provincial and central governments were arguing about financing.
The dominant nation in rhythmic gymnastics, Russia, has called for men to be allowed to compete in one of the last single-gender Olympic sports.
Rhythmic gymnastics, where athletes perform complex routines to music using apparatus such as a ribbon or ball, has remained women-only despite an International Olympic Committee push for greater integration across all sports.
Russia has won every gold medal in the sport since the 2000 Olympics and the head of the country’s rhythmic gymnastics federation, Irina Viner-Usmanova, tells Russian media she is “absolutely behind (men) taking part.”