Despite the national challenges, officials at the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games said their only focus is to successfully host the world's biggest winter sports festival next year.

"Even during the impeachment crisis, we were just busy to prepare for the test events and to check our readiness for the PyeongChang Olympics," a POCOG official said on the condition of anonymity. "Regardless of political state, we will just focus on making the Winter Games a success."

The POCOG has been suffering from a corruption scandal involving Park's confidante Choi Soon-sil. Suspicions have persisted that Choi and her relatives have sought to win lucrative contracts related to the Olympics by exploiting her close ties to the president.

The scandal hasn't just affected PyeongChang's image. The business community has also been reluctant to open its collective wallet to support the Olympics, with the nation's major corporations also implicated in the scandal.

However, as uncertainties clear away, POCOG hopes the new president to give a bump to the Olympics that will be staged in PyeongChang and its nearby sub-host cities, Gangneung and Jeongseon, in Gangwon Province from Feb. 9 to 25 next year.

Under the law, South Korea must hold a presidential by-election within two months of the historic verdict, and many expect it to fall on May 9.

The Winter Games will be the first major sporting event for the new president to greet sports leaders around the world.

The new South Korean president can now take part in both the opening and closing ceremonies of the PyeongChang Olympics. If not impeached, Park could have declared the opening of the Winter Games, as her term ends on Feb. 24, 2018, but that honor will go to her successor.

"We believe that the country's next president will pay more attention to the PyeongChang Olympics," a POCOG official said. "We also expect the PyeongChang Olympics to bring unity among South Koreans." (Yonhap)