News
- Roundup of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics
- The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics held from February 9 to the 25th for 17 days is regarded as a successful event in all areas of the games' management, public popularity and athletes' records including that of Team Korea. Over 29-hundred athletes from 92 nations took part in the largest ever Winter Games. South Korea won five gold, eight silver and four bronze medals for a 7th place finish. The Games were held in Pyeongchang, Jeongseon and Gangneung in Gangwon Province. A record 102 gold medals were up for grabs. In the opening ceremony, athletes of the two Koreas jointly marched for the first time since the 2007 Winter Asian Games in China. The overall operation of the Olympics is also deemed successful. Most event schedules progressed smoothly excluding a few changes in skiing competitions due to strong winds. It was a safe Olympics with hardly any security concerns and athletes could solely focus on their performance. Ticket sales neared 98%, testifying to the popularity of the Games among the general public. Also in PyeongChang, two world records and 18 Olympic records were set. Six nations took part in the Winter Games for the first time this year including Nigeria, Malaysia and Singapore. The percentage of female athletes also posted a record high this year at 42%. One of the bigger themes of the Olympics was hosting a peaceful event amid tensions surrounding North Korea's nuclear crisis. There were concerns leading up to the games with some countries hesitating to send their athletes to South Korea. However just before the opening, North Korea's participation in the Games was materialized, swiftly shifting the mood. Forty-six North Korean athletes competed while the two Koreas fielded a joint team in women's ice hockey. Cross-border dialogue opened to discuss the joint team which led to a high-level North Korean delegation visiting the South. PyeongChang was the second Olympics hosted by South Korea after the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics. A record 146 South Korean athletes competed in 15 sporting events and won a record number of medals including three gold in short-track speed skating. Yun Sung-bin who won gold in men's skeleton became Asia's first Olympic skeleton champion. Silver medals won in women's curling, 4-man bobsleigh and alpine snowboarding are considered as precious as a gold medal. A silver in women’s curling is an astonishing result for Korea’s second only competition in the sport at the Winter Olympics. The bobsleigh silver is also historic in that it’s Asia’s first ever medal won in the event. Lee Sang-ho’s silver in the men's parallel giant slalom also marked South Korea’s first Olympic medal in skiing. South Korea failed to meet its goal of winning eight gold for a fourth place finish but rare medals gained in less known events made up for its overall performance.
-
2018-02-25
Hot Issues of the Week
- PyeongChang Winter Olympics Begin
- The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics officially kicked off at 8 p.m. Friday with a spectacular opening ceremony. More than 29-hundred athletes from 92 nations are taking part in the event, the largest in Winter Olympics history. There are also a record 102 gold medals up for grabs this year in 15 sporting events. North Korea is among those participating at the Games in a move aimed at improving Seoul-Pyongyang relations and creating an Olympics of peace. The U.S has sent the largest delegation from any single country in the history of the Winter Games, with around 240 American athletes competing at PyeongChang. Team Korea consists of one-hundred-46 athletes, who will be hoping to achieve the country’s targeted fourth place finish with eight gold, four silver and eight bronze medals. Meanwhile, six nations are taking part in their first Winter Olympics, including Malaysia, Ecuador, Singapore and Nigeria. The competition is being held in Pyeongchang, Gangneung and Jeongseon, with most snow events taking place in Pyeongchang and all ice events in Gangneung. It represents the second time Korea has hosted the Olympics, following the Seoul Summer Olympics in 1988. The nation took part in the Winter Games for the first time in 1948 and has now become a host nation 70 years later. It's also only the second Winter Olympics held in Asia after the 1998 Nagano Games in Japan 20 years ago. South Korea has also become only the fifth country in the world to host all four major sports events -- the Summer and Winter Olympics, the soccer World Cup and the IAAF World Athletics Championships. The other four countries are France, Germany, Italy and Japan. But the most meaningful achievement will be to host a peaceful Olympics, following an escalation in the North Korean nuclear crisis last year. A unified inter-Korean team is competing in women’s ice hockey, while the two Koreas marched together in the opening ceremony under the flag of a unified Korean Peninsula. North Korea sending its art troupe, cheerleaders and a high-level delegation to South Korea has also created a momentum for dialogue. Despite the Olympic ban on Russia over its doping scandal, individual Russian athletes are still able to participate in the Olympics under a neutral flag if they proved they hadn’t violated anti-doping protocols. The Games continue through February 25 for 17 days.
-
2018-02-11
Hot Issues of the Week
- Two Koreas Hold Mutual Visits for Winter Olympics
- Preparations are well under way for North Korea's participation in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, with advance teams from the two Koreas making mutual visits to inspect related sites. A cultural team from North Korea led by Hyon Song-wol, head of the Samjiyon Orchestra, was the first to visit the South last Sunday. Their two-day trip was originally scheduled to start on Saturday, but Pyongyang abruptly notified Seoul Friday night that it was "suspending" the visit. The North did then come on Sunday, although the reason for the delay is unknown. On the first day, North Korean officials toured sites in the city of Gangneung. At Gangneung Art Center, they spent two and a half hours thoroughly checking concert facilities. On the second day, they moved up to Seoul and visited three performance halls including an hour-long stay at the National Theater where officials checked on lighting, the sound system and stage setting. After returning home, North Korea notified Seoul of its plan to perform at the Gangneung Art Center and the National Theater in Seoul around the time of the Olympics. On Tuesday, an advance team from South Korea crossed the border to the North. Over three days, the 12 member team led by a senior Unification Ministry official toured a North Korean ski resort and performance sites at Mount Geumgang. It marks the first time since February 2016 that a South Korean government official has visited the North. The Masikryong Ski Resort is where South and North Korean skiers will hold their joint training sessions. At Geumgang, South Korean officials examined possible venues for a joint inter-Korean performance scheduled at the scenic mountain. Meanwhile, another inspection team from the North arrived in the South on Thursday, the same day South Korean officials returned from the North. The North's female ice hockey team also came Thursday as the two Koreas have agreed to field a joint team. On arrival, the eight member North Korean delegation led by senior sports official Yun Yong-bok headed straight to Gangwon Province and looked around where the North's cheering squad will be staying during the Olympic period. In Gangneung, they toured various stadiums where sporting events will take place. On the second day, they traveled to PyeongChang and also visited Olympic facilities. The delegation then inspected sites in Seoul on the final day of their trip. Meanwhile the North's ice hockey team, which includes the coach, 12 athletes and two officials, headed directly to the National Training Center in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province where they joined training with South Korean athletes. The joint inter-Korean team have been allowed to have an expanded 35 members and three North Korean players will be included in every match. With the mutual visits progressing smoothly, the goal to make the PyeongChang Games a ‘peace Olympics’ appears to be nearly accomplished.
-
2018-01-28
Hot Issues of the Week
- Less than 50 Days to PyeongChang Winter Olympics
- With the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics now less than 50 days away, all preparations for the games have now been completed. Stadiums were constructed early on, with successful trial runs also held through Olympic test events. Twelve arenas and the PyeongChang Olympic Plaza where the opening and closing ceremonies will be held were completed three months prior to the games' opening. Two athletes’ villages were also unveiled earlier this month, and the organizing committee is set to open the Media Center on January 9. Most of the snow events will take place in PyeongChang and all ice events will be in Gangneung, while alpine skiing races will be held in Jeongseon. A bullet train service connecting Seoul and Gangneung in Gangwon Province has also opened. Using this line, PyeongChang can be reached in just 90 minutes from Seoul's Cheongnyangni station. Team Korea aims to win eight gold, four silver and eight bronze medals for a fourth-place finish, which is nine places higher than the previous Winter Olympics. Korea's goal is to have 130 athletes compete in all seven events. As of Wednesday, 95 have secured their places in four events. This means that Korea will certainly have more athletes competing at the home games than at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia, when 71 Korean athletes competed in six events Korea is expected to pick up the most medals in short track speed skating, with at least four golds predicted from Shim Suk-hee and Choi Min-jung. The men's team is also determined to make up for their poor results at the Sochi Olympics where they failed to win a single medal. Team Korea is also hoping that it will finally win its first medals in the skeleton and bobsleigh events. Overall, the prospects are bright for a successful PyeongChang Games. As of Wednesday, 92 nations have expressed their intent to take part in the games, which is already more than the record 88 for the Sochi games. Also, the heads of states or representatives of 43 countries have pledged to attend the Olympics. The number is expected to surpass the 45 national representatives who attended the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics in Brazil. It's still unclear whether North Korea will participate in the event, but the regime typically decides on these matters close to opening day. The International Olympic Committee has banned Russia's participation over the doping scandal but Russian athletes can still take part individually.
-
2017-12-25
Hot Issues of the Week
- Winter Olympic Torch Relay Begins in S. Korea
- Marking 100 days until the start of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the Olympic flame arrived in Seoul on Wednesday. A torch relay has now begun which will wrap up on February ninth, the opening day of the winter games. The flame for the PyeongChang Games was first lit at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece on October 24th. After an eight-day relay through Greece, it made its way into South Korean hands having traveled over 8,500 kilometers. The flame arrived at Incheon International Airport at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Some 750 people were on hand to welcome its arrival, including PyeongChang Organizing Committee chairman Lee Hee-beom and sports stars such as figure skating champion and PyeongChang games PR ambassador Kim Yu-na. South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon stressed in his speech the significance of hosting the Winter Games 30 years after the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He noted the success of the ’88 games as well as the 2002 South Korea-Japan World Cup, and expressed hopes for a repeat in Pyeongchang as well. The torch relay kicked off Wednesday with the first torch bearer being You Young, who made headlines for becoming the youngest national ladies' singles figure skating champion in Korea at age eleven last year. A total of 75-hundred torch bearers will carry the flame some two-thousand-18 kilometers across South Korea before it is delivered to the PyeongChang Olympic stadium for the opening ceremony on February 9th. The 23rd Winter Olympics in PyeongChang will be held from February 9th to the 25th under the slogan "Passion.Connected." Some 65-hundred athletes from 95 countries will compete in 102 events. The opening and closing ceremonies and most snow sport events will take place in PyeongChang, while all ice sports will be held in Gangneung and downhill alpine skiing will be in Jeongseon. Basic facilities and stadiums have been completed for the most part with Olympic test events already held successfully. Amid the simmering North Korea crisis, there is a determination among organizers to ensure the PyeongChang games are an Olympic of peace. For South Korea, following a period of political turmoil and conflict, the event is considered to play a key role in promoting national unity. The Olympics is also expected to generate over 32 trillion won in economic effects over the next ten years.
-
2017-11-05
Hot Issues of the Week
