South Korea hoping to be chosen as host

South Korea hoping to be chosen as host

South Korea is hoping that its city of PyeongChang comes up trumps when the host of the 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games is announced at the 123rd International Olympic Committee (IOC) session at Durban's International Convention Centre in two weeks.
More than 2,500 sports administrators, media, business and political leaders are|expected to attend the session, with the highlight being the announcement of the 2018 winter games host city.
PyeongChang is up against two European rivals - Munich, Germany and Annecy, France. The city wants to bring the winter games to South Korea for the first time and to Asia for the third time. Both France and Germany have hosted the event previously.
The city was labelled the favourite in the bids for the 2010 and 2014 games, but was beaten by Vancouver, Canada and Sochi, Russia.
Bid chairman and Korean Air boss Yang Ho Cho said while they were very confident, they would not rest and would be campaigning until the end.
"We can't afford to relax until voting day on July 6 in Durban. The message we are sending to the IOC members is that with PyeongChang is a huge opportunity to grow winter sports in Asia - a market with huge potential. The important thing is to show that we have the capacity and the passion to host this event, and that's what we are doing," said Yang.
Bid committee operations co-ordinator Dan Moon said more than 80 percent of the South Korean population backed the bid.

< The Mercury >
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