A LITTLE OLYMPIC HEALING
However, a report in 2015 — before post-Games plans for some of the venues had been decided — projected the yearly cost for maintaining the facilities after the Olympics at just over $23.7 million, with a yearly deficit to Gangwon province and other local governments of more than $18 million, after revenue was accounted for. The review was put together after examining a feasibility study by the Korea Development Institute.
Gangwon, which houses PyeongChang, Gangneung and Jeongseon, is counting on spending by tourists to help sustain the viability of the venues in the coming years.
“Gangwon Province hopes to continually attract tourists to the province for future sporting events, meetings, conferences and exhibitions and we want to offer them state-of-the-art facilities,” Lim said.
“With a concrete legacy plan for Gangneung Oval and continuous support from the administration, POCOG believes that PyeongChang 2018 infrastructure legacy plan can become a great example to future hosts,” Lim said, noting that the country’s newly elected president, Moon Jae-in, has pledged his financial support for the facilities postOlympics.
That support means a lot, considering the turbulent circumstances in which these Games came about. Venues aside, they have made headlines for a scandal largely outside of organizers’ control.
GAMES WITH A BACKDROP OF SCANDAL
In December 2016, the country was rocked by the presidential impeachment of Park Geun-hye, after she was charged with bribery, extortion and abuse of power tied to her alleged business collaboration with a longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil.
At one point, several reports indicated Choi allegedly attempted to pocket profits from deals related to the Olympics. Lee Hee-beom, president of the PyeongChang Organizing Committee, vehemently denied it.
“I admit that the Winter Games have been the target for such corruption but I can clearly say that no such attempts actually materialized,” Lee told reporters in January, adding that most of the construction contracts were made before the Choi allegations emerged.
The scandal dampened much of the interest for the Olympics. Koreans were, to state the obvious, a little distracted.
“I can’t say we were completely free from these political influences,” Lee admitted later in April — one month before the presidential elections on May 9. “I think most of the Korean public is hearing more about the upcoming elections and less about PyeongChang.”
Furthermore, big businesses were scared away from the negative news coverage associated with Choi and the Games, and the organizing committee struggled to reach its sponsorship target of just over $1 billion.
“Firms were asking us to delay the announcement” of their sponsorships,” Lim said. “It was a huge hit on our image. Even though we weren’t implicated in the scandal, the public’s view in general on sports has been negative in the past months.”
Now that Park has been impeached — and a new president has been elected — Lim said there has been a better atmosphere. The team had already partnered with five new sponsors, and he was “confident” they will reach their target.
Olympic committee president Lee expressed similar optimism: “After May 9, the single biggest event for Korea will be the Olympics. I always say, when the spring winds blow, spring will indeed come. And once the Olympic season comes upon us, then I hope the mood will ripen for the Games.”
Olympic organizers are counting on 70 per cent of ticket sales to come domestically — which makes South Korean engagement crucial to the Games’ success.
IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?
A nationwide survey in April, before the election, showed more than half of South Koreans (55 per cent) believed the country’s first Winter Olympics would be successful — although only 35 per cent of people said they were interested in the Games. Nearly 85 per cent said they’d rather watch them on TV than attend.
Ticket sales have been sluggish. In the first phase of domestic ticket sales earlier this year, organizers received applications for 380,000 tickets, and eventually allocated 162,000, even though the reported goal was 600,000, according to Agence France-Presse.
That’s barely a quarter of tickets sold, with most of them going to sporting events the country excels in, such as figure skating and shorttrack speedskating.
Still, organizers are hoping to ultimately sell 1.18 million tickets. The next round of sales begin in September. Ticket prices on the official website range from $22 for cross-country skiing, to $1,008 for prime seats at the men’s gold medal hockey game. About half of all tickets are priced below $90.
“POCOG is confident that we will be able to meet our goal of selling 90 per cent of available tickets, because the excitement and interest for the Games is growing and POCOG will have many public engagement activities leading up to the Games,” Lim said.
That excitement hinges on South Korea’s young athletes. Now that figure skating superstar Kim Yuna — a past Olympic champion, World champion and Four Continents Champion — has retired, the country has no obvious beacon to turn to as its next winter sports hero. South Korea is a powerhouse in speed and figure skating, but it drops off from there.
Lim noted several “rising stars,” including cross country skier Kim Magnus, the runner-up at the 2016 Junior World Championships; Cha Jun-hwan, a 15-year-old figure skater who placed first in South Korea’s 2017 nationals; and Yun Sung-bin, a Korean skeleton racer who participated in Sochi, where he finished near the back of the pack in his heats.
While accomplished, none of them is a household name in South Korea.
Kim Sang-yeol, a 34-year-old café owner in Sokcho, about a 50-minute drive from Gangneung, said when he was younger there was little education about Winter Games athletes in school, and that he’s more interested in the Summer Olympics.
“People where I live don’t talk about the (PyeongChang) Olympics,” he said. “There are no Winter Olympic stars in Korea. I’m not much interested, but I’ll try to buy a ticket for the ice hockey game. If it’s too expensive, I’m just going to watch on TV.”
Gemma Gil, a 26-year-old sociology and statistics major who lives just outside of Seoul, said half a year out, there’s little Olympics chatter among the people she knows. And she can’t think of one athlete who would qualify as the country’s biggest winter sports star.
“I don’t really care much ... not many people or media talk about it. There’s some commercials about the Olympics, but not a lot. Of course all people know it’s happening next year, but don’t really care about it for now.”
The apparent lack of buzz has not solely been a domestic phenomenon, either.
“I find it striking how little (international) attention these Games have received so far,” said Michael Heine, the Western prof.
“PyeongChang is a very low profile media event because there’s no scandal,” Heine said. “Rio was full of scandal reporting, and Sochi of course received a lot of critical investigating in regards to suitability and the absolutely astounding cost. In the run-up to the Games ... problem always draws first attention.”
Lim, however, contested the notion that the Games aren’t receiving interest. Koreans are “excited,” he said, and have shown it by coming out to organizers’ Olympic “test events,” including selling out the weekend games for figure skating and short-track speedskating.
Even more, Lim said about 79,000 local people made up 86 per cent of the total Olympic volunteer applications in the initial call-out round.
“Our people are very interested in being part of the Games, despite the political turmoil earlier this year,” Lim said, adding that the “stability that comes from a new leadership” will hopefully bring in more sponsorships and instil enthusiasm in the public.
Jung Chang-soo, CEO of Korea Tourism Organization, also doesn’t think “promotion marketing has been dulled because of the political situation in Korea.” He cited three major tourism expos Korea recently attended to drum up interest for the Games, as well as 31 tourism offices around the world.
Olympic officials won’t have to wait long — only until the September round of ticket sales — to see whether their renewed promotional push has made a dent in the Korean consciousness.
THAT HEALING SPIRIT
After raucous and gruelling political upheaval, proponents insist the Games may be just what today’s South Korea needs.
The Olympics, they say, point people back to what is good in human achievement, and give them reason to celebrate.
But can these Games really win over a distracted nation with few traditional ties to their winter sports? And will PyeongChang be able to leave an Olympic legacy that buoys the country, as opposed to saddling it with unsustainable venues and debt?
Lim is a believer. He said the Olympics’ healing qualities “will restore national unity,” come what may, after the Games conclude.
“The organizing committee is preparing the best Games ever to give to the public,” Lim said. “If you were in Rio or other successful Games, everybody is cheerful. I believe it really heals people.”