Koreans await midnight decision on PyeongChang’s Olympic bid


Kim Hyun-chul, a 32-year-old office worker in Seoul, plans to stay up until midnight Wednesday to find out whether PyeongChang succeeds in its third attempt to host the Winter Olympics.

“I hope with all my heart that the city is selected this time around,” he said. “People worked really hard,” he added.

The fate of PyeongChang’s bid for the 2018 Games will be determined Wednesday night in Durban, South Africa, where members of the International Olympic Committee will pick the host out of three candidate cities ― PyeongChang, Munich in Germany and Annecy in France.

The result is expected to be announced around midnight Korean time, keeping tens of thousands of people here away from their beds and glued to TVs.

The nation’s three terrestrial TV channels plan to broadcast live the announcement by IOC chairman Jacques Rogge from the South African city.

“I read from news reports that PyeongChang is leading. It’s a good thing but I can’t help but feel anxious, because PyeongChang lost after an early lead (in two previous bids),” another citizen Lee Seung-yoon wrote on an online bulletin board.

As the countdown to the IOC vote enters the final stretch, anxiety is growing in Korea that PyeongChang’s decade-long effort should not be wasted.

The snow-prone resort, about a two-hour drive from Seoul, came heartbreakingly close to being selected as host of the 2010 and 2014 Games.

It won the first-round vote both times but lost out to Vancouver, Canada, by three votes in the final round and then to Sochi, Russia, by four.

To make the third time lucky, Korea’s central government, as well as its people, have offered enthusiastic support.

President Lee Myung-bak is currently in Durban to lead the Korean delegation’s final presentation ahead of the vote, emphasizing that it is time that the event comes to Asia, a new frontier for winter sports.

If selected, PyeongChang will be the first Asian city, outside Japan, to host the Winter Olympics.

The provincial government of Gangwon has sent nearly 400 citizens to Durban, as supporters of PyeongChang’s Olympic bid.

Thousands are expected to gather at a plaza in front of the Gangwon provincial office and other venues across the country in the evening hours of Wednesday to watch the IOC announcement together.

Various special events are planned, with some restaurants promising free meals and shopping malls steep discounts, if PyeongChang is awarded.

Surveys show that 92 percent of Koreans support PyeongChang’s Olympic bid. The figure is even higher among residents of Gangwon Province residents at 93 percent and PyeongChang residents at 93.4 percent.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)