When will the Olympics take place in Korea? What the Olympic venues look like in Korea three months before the start. Income on income

XXIII winter Olympic Games will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea from February 9 to 25, 2018. What the Olympic venues look like three months before the start of the Olympics - in the gallery.

The opening and closing ceremonies of the 2018 Olympics will be held at the main stadium in Pyeongchang. Construction of the stadium began in 2014, and it opened only in September 2017.

But work at the stadium is still underway: workers are “sanding out” defects, laying turf on the field and installing running tracks.

Construction of the arena began in March 2014, and official opening took place in March 2017. The cost of constructing the facility was about $90 million, and its capacity was 10 thousand spectators.

In Pyeongchang, South Korea, today, February 9, the official opening ceremony of the XXIII Winter Olympic Games 2018 will take place. We bring to your attention the facts and interesting stories, which are worth knowing about the 2018 White Olympics in this mountainous county.

Second Olympics on the third try

South Korea will host the main event for the second time in history sports competition humanity - in 1988 the XXIV Summer Olympic Games took place in Sueli.

Thus, South Korea became the eighth country in the world that received the right to host both the Winter and Summer Olympics. Note that Pyeongchang won the Winter Olympics only on the third attempt. This little-known city snatched victory from such famous European cities as Munich in Germany and Annecy in France.

Don't confuse Pyeongchang with Pyongyang!

Yes, there is often confusion with these two cities located on the peninsula, but this is not the only thing they have in common. This is exactly what Daniel Olomae did recently from Kenya, who was flying to this South Korean city for the UN conference on biodiversity. Confused, he landed in the capital of North Korea, where he was detained by the migration service.

Record number of participating countries

Representatives from 92 countries will compete for medals at the XXIII Winter Olympics 2018 in Pyeongchang. This is four more than at the previous 2014 Games in Sochi. For six countries this will be their debut at the main winter competitions on the planet - we are talking about Ecuador, Eritrea, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nigeria and Singapore. 2,925 athletes are registered to compete at the Games.

Mascots of the 2018 Games

These are the tiger cub Suhoran and the bear cub Pandabi (in the Paralympics).

Suhoran is a defender of all athletes and fans. Pandabi is a symbol of freedom.

The white tiger from Korean mythology symbolizes trust, strength and protection. “Sooho” – protection, “Rang” – part of the word “ho-rang-i”, “tiger”. At the first Olympics in Korea, in the summer of Seoul 1988, the mascot was also a tiger, but an Amur one (Khodori).

Africa is coming

Uganda (snowboarder Brolin Maweje) and Nigeria (women's bobsleigh team) are set to make their debut at the 2018 White Games. Africa doesn't have any winter medals yet.

Four new disciplines

IN Olympic program added big air in snowboarding, mass start in speed skating, double mixed in curling and team competition in alpine skiing. Parallel slalom in snowboarding is excluded.

The coldestGames in history

According to forecasters, the 2018 Olympics in South Korea could become the coldest in history, breaking the record of the 1994 Games in Norway's Lillehamer, when the thermometer dropped to -11 Celsius.

At the rehearsal for the opening ceremony last Saturday, the temperature dropped to -23 degrees. Because of the frost, the organizers decided to shorten the opening ceremony of the traditional four hours to two. Warm hats, blankets and even seat warmers will be distributed at the stadium.

Athletes are already complaining about extreme cold. Skiers complain that due to the accumulation of frozen snow crystals, they have to change their skis after each descent.

Go...

How to get from Seoul to PyeongChang by high speed train in 68 minutes, as promised. The high-speed line was built back in the summer specifically for the 2018 Olympics and cost $3.7 billion.

Gangnam Style

Not an Olympic anthem

It has nothing to do with the Gangwon province, in which Pyeongchang is located (Gangnam is a district of Seoul).

Korean hip-house is the leader in search results on Youtube (2.7 billion), and even the global TV audience of the Winter Olympics (about 2.1 billion) will not surpass it.

Tickets for the 2018 Games range from $17 to $1,300.

85 robots among staff

The Olympics for South Korea is also a reason to show off the latest technological achievements. During the Olympic torch relay, a humanoid robot carried it a distance of 150 meters. Having reached the wall with fire, the robot drilled a hole in it and passed the torch to its creator.

85 robots will assist athletes and visitors during the Olympics - some will greet Games participants in the lobby of Pyeongchang Airport, others will provide information in different languages.

Robots will also be involved in cleaning and delivering food and drinks. A robot copy of the Olympic mascot will entertain guests with dancing and singing, as well as take souvenir photos.

And a medal around my neck...

On September 21, 2017, the 2018 Olympic medals were presented in the capital of the Republic of Korea. The front of the medals features diagonal lines that symbolize the history of the Olympics and the determination of the athletes. The reverse side depicts sports disciplines. The medal ribbons are created using traditional Korean fabrics.

80 km to North Korea

The 2018 Games are taking place in the only province in the world that is located in two states at once and through which the state border passes. Pyeongchang is located in Gangwon Province, which is found in both South and North Korea. After the end of the Korean War in 1953, the province was divided.

There are excursions into the 4 km wide demilitarized zone separating both Koreas. 45 dollars - and you are already looking through binoculars at the ominous communist north and the tunnels dug from there.

Transformable skating rink

The Gyeongpo Ice Hall in Gangning can withstand +15°C and will not allow athletes to sit in a puddle in the literal sense of the word. And in just three hours, maybe from soft ice For figure skating(-4°C) turn into thin and hard - for short track (-7°C).

With the wind

Usually a luge and bobsleigh track is built outdoors, but the Koreans were the first to create part of the structure at a factory and then assemble it. They say that minimal exposure of parts to the open air reduces the impact on the metal structure. Route length – 2018

The very shallow slope at the end will not be used at the Games, but after that it will become a popular attraction - tourists will be able to sled there.

Korean "mitten"

Olympic village in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang. Photo: twitter.com/olympics

Housing in the Olympic Village is very tiny. Beds in athletes' rooms occupy almost the entire space - from wall to wall. After the end of the Games, apartments will be built here.

"Green" irony

In preparation for the Games, Koreans used exclusively environmentally friendly materials and technologies, preserving nature. But ironically, they came under international condemnation when they destroyed a nature reserve with 500-year-old trees on Mount Garivon to build a downhill ski slope.

"Modest" Olympics

South Korean officials say the 2018 Games will cost the country $7 billion. Such modest costs are explained by the fact that most of the facilities were built earlier, when Pyeongchang competed for the 2010 and 2014 Olympics.

The smallest number of actors in history - about 2 thousand - will be involved in the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games. The organizers focus on high technology.

According to the forecast of the Research Institute of the Republic of Korea, the 2018 Olympic Games will bring the country a profit of 61 billion US dollars. This amount will be added to the national gross domestic product within next years. Experts predict that tens of billions will be brought in additional income from tourism in the next 10 years when foreigners wish to expand their knowledge of Korea.

The profit that Korea will receive from the 2018 Olympics will be five times higher than the profit from the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Income on income

After the end of the Olympics, it is planned that the increase in the number of tourists who annually come to Korean ski resorts will reach 10% or more. By the way, currently the number of tourists in Korea annually is 10 million.

The benefits of hosting the Olympics will obviously come not only in the form of financial benefits to the country, because foreign investment in the country's economy will flow over a very long period of time.

In addition, the 2018 Olympic Games will open up many opportunities for the Republic of Korea. Suffice it to recall Korea’s “global leadership” after the 1988 Summer Olympics were held in Seoul.

The subsequent FIFA World Cup in 2002 created a so-called “Korean Wave” across Asia, which in turn contributed to the rise of companies such as Hyundai Motor and Samsung Electronics.

Torch to order

Relay format olympic flame chosen by the people: among the ideas were a reproduction of a traditional wedding ceremony and a torch with a geolocator. And the fire, thanks to technology, will not go out in any weather conditions.

Be careful, snow!

Snow in Asia is different from European snow - drier and denser. The Thebeksan Mountains cannot boast of the required amount of snow, and artificial snow is used heavily on the slopes. Usually it should be faster than natural, but not this time. This is likely due to humidity, local water quality, or wind blowing sand and small insects onto the snow.

Festival Paradise

In January, the Snow Festival is held in Pyeongchang, in July - music, potato and mountain flowers - in August, days of national culture - in September, Buddhist culture - in October. In winter, people catch trout with their bare hands, run marathons in their underwear, race cars in the snow, and rock climb on icy mountains.

The route is not for everyone

Among the new facilities in Pyeongchang, the most criticized is the Alpensia biathlon track. The world's best biathlete, Frenchman Martin Fourcade, drew attention to this aspect: “The firing line is quite open, which makes it more difficult to cope with the wind.” And the leader of the women's world biathlon, German Laura Dahlmeier, praised the shooting range, but still dismissed the difficulties: “The descents and ascents are very steep, so it’s not so easy to ride.” But American Lowell Bailey is simply glad that the new route is safer than the one he tried in Pyeongchang eight years ago: “If you go to YouTube, you will see that some of the most striking falls in history took place on the local slopes in 2008 and 2009 . So it’s good that the track was changed.”

Scandals of the 2018 Olympics

The games haven't started yet, but one very loud scandal Since 2017, the whole world has been discussing the decision to remove the Russian Olympic Committee from participation in the games.

On December 5, 2017, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (which is equivalent to suspending the Russian team) from participation in the 2018 Olympic Games.

At the same time 169 Russian athletes will be able to compete on an individual basis under a neutral (Olympic) flag. Invited athletes will participate under the title " Olympic athlete from Russia,” and the Olympic anthem will be played during the award ceremonies.

This is the country's first ever suspension from the Olympics due to doping. According to the IOC decision, not a single official from the Russian Ministry of Sports will receive accreditation for the Games in Korea. Coaches and doctors whose athletes have ever been convicted of doping will not be able to go to Pyeongchang.

According to the IOC, the reason for the suspension was “systematic manipulation of anti-doping rules and the anti-doping system in Russia during the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi using the Disappearing Positive Methodology.” This conclusion was reached by investigators who were tasked with checking the facts about government interference in the work of the anti-doping system.

30 thousand persona non grata

During the 2018 Olympics, the South Korean police are on high alert - about 13 thousand law enforcement officers will keep order. 30 thousand people considered a threat to the security of the 2018 Games were banned from entering the country for the duration of the Olympics. It is expected that 80 thousand tourists will come to Pyeongchang.

Ukraine will be the least populous country in the history of the Olympics

33 athletes will represent Ukraine at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang - this is the smallest number of athletes in the history of our country’s participation in Winter Olympics. There are 11 athletes in the biathlon team in total. The performance will be considered successful if the team wins at least one medal, said Sports Minister Igor Zhdanov.

Prepared by Ivan Dupnak,
IA ZIK

The Closing Ceremony took place in the Korean city of Pyeongchang on February 25, 2018. XXIII winter Olympic Games. The theatrical production during the celebration was divided into four parts - “Light of Harmony”, “Axis of New Time”, “Song of Passion” and “Night of Victory”. The first featured traditional Korean string instruments combined with electric guitar sounds. The actors' dance was performed on a 40-meter inclined stage. All this combined symbolized harmony.

The idea of ​​the “Modern Axis” was human will, which moves a person towards a new time, despite obstacles. It was symbolized by a giant axis of light that appeared in the arena in the dark. “Song of Passion” featured famous Korean pop artists CL and EXO performing on stage. The final part ended the ceremony with dancing by actors, athletes and spectators to the sound of fireworks that lit up the night sky of Pyeongchang. The party's DJ was Dutchman Martin Garrix and famous Korean electronic music performers.

As part of the ceremony, a parade of athletes and the handing over of the Olympic flag to the delegation of Beijing, the capital of the XXIV Winter Olympic Games in 2022, took place. At the 2018 Games, Russians competed in the status of “Olympic athletes from Russia.” A Russian delegation marched through the stadium in Pyeongchang under an Olympic flag carried by a volunteer as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive committee decided on Sunday not to allow Russians to participate in the closing ceremony under the national flag.

The 2018 Olympics took place from February 9 to 25. It set a record number of participants - 2925 athletes. In total, teams from 92 countries were represented. For the first time in Winter Games Teams from the Republic of Kosovo, Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria, Eritrea and Ecuador participated. A number of countries perform after the break - South Africa, Kenya, Colombia, Madagascar, North Korea and others.

The Norwegian team won the unofficial medal standings, winning 14 gold, 14 silver and 11 bronze medals. The Norwegians also updated the record for the number of medals in a single Winter Games.

At the Games, the Russians won 17 medals - two gold, six silver and nine bronze. Received gold awards Russian hockey players and figure skater Alina Zagitova, who became the champion in women's singles skating.

Evgeniy Medvedev won silver - figure skating, skaters in the team tournament, Nikita Tregubov - skeleton, Alexander Bolshunov - cross-country skiing at 50 km classic style, men's ski relay team and men's freestyle sprint ski team.

Semyon Elistratov - short track, 1500 m, Yulia Belorukova - skiing, classic sprint, Alexandra Bolshunov - skiing, classic sprint, Denis Spitsov - skiing, 15 km, Natalia Voronina - speed skating, 5000 m, women's cross-country skiing relay team, Ilya Burov - freestyle, acrobatics, Sergei Ridzik - freestyle, ski cross and Andrey Larkov - 50 km cross-country skiing in the classical style.

Results of the Winter Olympic Games 2018

1st place - Norway.
2nd place - Germany.
3rd place - Canada.
4th place - USA.
5th place - the Netherlands.
6th place - Sweden.
7th place - South Korea.
8th place - Switzerland.
9th place - France.
10th place - Austria.
11th place - Japan.
12th place - Italy.
13th place - Russia.
14th place - Czech Republic.
15th place - Belarus.
16th place - China.
17th place - Slovakia.
18th place - Finland.
19th place - Great Britain.
20th place - Poland.
21st place - Hungary.
22nd place - Ukraine.
23rd place - Australia.
24th place - Slovenia.
25th place - Belgium.
26th place - Spain.
27th place - New Zealand.
28th place - Kazakhstan.
29th place - Latvia.
30th place - Liechtenstein.

The next Winter Olympics will be held in the Korean city Pyeongchang(Pyeongchang, 평창). This will be the 23rd Winter Olympic Games. They will be held from February 9 to February 25, 2018.

Most of the competitions of the 2018 Olympic Games will take place at the Alpensia ski resort. You can read more about it on the official website of Alpensia. The opening and closing ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics are also planned to be held in Alpensia.

Read about the centers hosting various Olympic venues in PyeongChang (in English).

Pyeongchang is not a high mountain city. The average altitude in the county is only 700 meters. Accordingly, there are no problems with oxygen on the mountain slopes, and the local nature is considered the cleanest in all of Korea. In addition, the mountains of Gangwon-do province are a great place for trekking; here you can ride horses and fish in mountain streams. The local climate is very similar to the Alpine climate; some similarities can be seen in the landscapes. The Korean mountains are especially beautiful in the fall, when the slopes and passes turn red and gold. At the same time, the mountains are the most crowded - mountain walks are especially loved by Koreans in the autumn. The ski season in the mountains around Pyeongchang lasts from November to April.

Pyeongchang was nominated three times to host the Winter Olympic Games, but twice lost this title to Vancouver in 2010 and Sochi in 2014. The Olympic Games in Korea promise to be held at a high organizational level, since Pyeongchang has already been held more than once international competitions in winter sports, including the World Championships and Biathlon World Cup stages.

Pyeongchang hosts several festivals: trout (almost all winter), snow (in January), music (in July), potato (mid-August), mountain flowers (early August), Korean national culture (in September), Buddhist culture (in October). In winter, Pyeongchang hosts some really crazy events. For example, a marathon in underwear (in winter!), auto racing in the snow and a rock climbing competition on icy mountains, and the winter trout festival can be classified as extreme sports - fish are caught in a mountain river in winter with bare hands.

From Seoul to Pyeongchang can be reached in 2 and a half hours. Large-scale road construction is currently underway in Korea, and from 2017 it will be possible to reach Pyeongchang by expressway.

With a project estimate of $11.8 billion, the cost of preparing for the XXIII Winter Olympics and XII Paralympic Games has so far totaled $12.6 billion. Olympic venues, including the PyeongChang Olympic Plaza with a 35,000-seat stadium where the opening and closing ceremonies will be held, more than $2.5 billion was spent. But of the 13 stadiums, only seven are new, the other six were refurbished and re-equipped, according to information from the Organizing Committee of the Games. Pyeongchang had been preparing to host athletes for a long time: it received the right to host the Games on the third attempt, losing to Vancouver in 2003, and to Sochi in 2007.

Another $10 billion has been spent on infrastructure, including roads and an additional section of high-speed rail. It connected Seoul, located in the west of the Korean Peninsula, with the eastern province of Gangwon-do, where three Olympic host cities are located and border each other: all the facilities for snow competitions are located in Pyeongchang and Jeongseon, and in coastal Gangneung - ice arenas. The organizing committee decided not to build a number of hotels that were supposed to be built in 2011, when Korea won the right to host the Games. Developers and hoteliers considered it too risky as tourist traffic to Korea has declined in recent years and the future of the tourism industry is uncertain. Only 3% of Korea's 50 million population live in Gangwon Province itself. Organizers “didn’t want to be left with idle [hotel] properties,” Nancy Park, a spokeswoman for the organizing committee, explained to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Instead of hotels, most of the fans were accommodated in apartment buildings (a total of 60,500 rooms), many of which were built for the Games.

Comparison with Sochi

The most expensive Olympics in history - in Sochi - is estimated at almost $51 billion, but all sports and infrastructure facilities there had to be built from scratch in as soon as possible. “When I first found myself [in the Sochi mountain cluster], it reminded me of a Bavarian village 50 years ago. And today it is a first-class ski resort. It would take us 50 years to do this. You did it in seven!” – Willie Bogner Jr., the owner of the Bogner brand, told Vedomosti in 2014. As a result, many objects in Sochi cost much more than if projects not related to the Games were implemented not in an emergency mode, but in the long term, noted Martin Müller, a professor at the University of Zurich, in 2016 (noting that this is generally characteristic feature such events). In addition, the well-remembered figure of $51 billion, made on the basis of the ruble valuation of Olympstroy, is only capital costs, he pointed out. Operating expenses for the Games amounted to $4.2 billion, i.e. in total - about $55 billion. This is 347% higher than the $12.3 billion planned in 2007, Muller calculated, which, however, is not a record: by summer games in Montreal in 1976 the overrun was 1,266%.

Reforms needed

The huge costs of preparing host cities and states for the Olympics in recent years have changed the attitude of some municipalities that previously planned to host the Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced a reform in December 2014, involving, in particular, a reduction in the number of competitions and athletes, as well as the possibility of joint holding of the Olympics by two countries. PyeongChang began preparing for the Games before this reform, but in 2015 the IOC invited the PyeongChang Organizing Committee to hold some competitions at existing venues in Japan. “They were not open to change at the time and decided to continue building their sites,” IOC chief executive Christophe Duby told the WSJ. As a result, the bobsleigh and luge stadium for 7,000 spectators cost Korea $100 million.

North Korea scares tourists

The task of recouping the costs of the Pyeongchang Olympics is complicated by specific problems. The capital of the XXIII Games is located not only in a remote province, but also less than 100 km from the border with the DPRK. North Korea's nuclear program, its missile launches and the escalating confrontation with the United States in Last year greatly increased the degree of tension on the peninsula. Tourist flow in 2017 South Korea decreased by a quarter, which is also explained by a drop in the number of tourists from China: Beijing, as reported by the media, instructed travel agencies not to sell package tours to South Korea after the United States installed a missile defense system there. “Tension on the Korean Peninsula has scared people, many national Olympic committees they returned part of the tickets allocated to them,” Dr. Heather Dichter, a specialist in sports management at the British Leicester Castle Business School, told Vedomosti. By November 1, 100 days before the start of the Games, 30% of the planned 1.1 million tickets had been sold - the slowest pace in history modern Games, wrote WSJ.

But on January 17, the governments of South and North Korea agreed that their teams would fly under the same flag and compete as one team in women's hockey - this defused the situation. Geographic restrictions on ticket sales have also been lifted and anyone in the world can buy them directly from the organizing committee, Dichter notes. On February 7, IOC President Thomas Bach announced that 78% of tickets had been sold.

Success stories

Experts identify the following criteria to determine how successful the Olympics (and, more broadly, major international sporting events) for the economy and the country as a whole. What matters is the extent to which preparations are “embedded” in the region's larger development plan, the PwC study says: whether sports and other facilities are built for a two-week celebration of sports, or are part of necessary transformations that will improve the quality of infrastructure and life in the long term. What legacy did the Olympics leave? Has it created conditions for increasing tourist flow, for using sports facilities and after the competition, did it improve the image of the country (by stimulating tourism and the influx of foreign investment)?

A classic success story is Barcelona, ​​which used the 1992 Games to transform an old post-industrial city into a vibrant center for tourists and services, McKinsey notes. London followed in her footsteps: the authorities saw preparations for the 2012 Olympics as a way to revive the economically underdeveloped East End and position the area and the city as a whole as a global center of culture, tourism, technology, finance and trade.

What Korea will gain from the Games

The 2018 Organizing Committee's brochure estimates the total economic impact of the Olympics at 64.9 trillion won ($54.6 billion); however, it is not explained what this figure is made up of. When PyeongChang was chosen as the Olympic capital in 2011, the think tank Hyundai The Research Institute predicted that the Games would increase the number of foreign tourists by 1 million per year within a decade. And turning Korea into an international winter destination and improving its image around the world would bring economic benefits of $40 billion. The institute has not updated its estimates since then, but recently admitted that the previous forecast for tourists is no longer relevant. The Olympics may increase private consumption in the current quarter by 0.1% compared to the fourth quarter of 2017, according to the Central Bank of Korea. Citigroup names the Olympics among other factors that could spur GDP growth in the first quarter.

“The question is what legacy will the Olympics leave,” Robert Bud, a professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois who studies the economics of the Olympics, told Vedomosti. – If expectations are exceeded, PyeongChang could become a [popular] tourist destination and ski resort. Much depends on the experience of visitors, their readiness and desire to talk later about their impressions.” Pyeongchang is located far from Europe and America, but can attract both Koreans, Japanese and Chinese. But it's difficult to predict anything definitive, Bud adds: The 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, which is essentially located in a part of the United States with many ski enthusiasts, provoked additional interest, but even there it did not last long. In the first winter season after the Olympics, in 2014/15, Sochi came in second place among ski resorts Russia, receiving 800,000 tourists.

Spain's ForwardKeys, which analyzes international air travel, said on Feb. 5 that Korea's gains from increased tourism from the 2018 Games would be limited. Bookings of air tickets to Korea for February flights increased by 15.4% year-on-year, and for March flights fell by 24.9%.

The benefits of new infrastructure may be more noticeable. All apartments in the buildings where fans will live during the Games have already been sold, “this is a success,” Dubey said. Development company Yongpyong Resort has sold all 600 apartments, mostly to compatriots from Seoul, at an average price of about $300,000, its chief financial officer told the WSJ. High-speed rail could make it easier for Koreans to take up winter sports, Dichter believes. Several ski resorts have closed in the country over the past decade. “The Olympics may help reverse this trend, but it is always difficult to predict.”

White elephants of the Olympics

Often large athletic facilities are not used after the Olympics, she adds, citing as examples the sites in Athens, the almost unused Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing (it may only be needed in 2022 at the Winter Olympics), the luge and bobsleigh stadium in Turin, which has not been in use even 10 years after the 2006 Games. Number of fans winter species sports in Sochi has grown since 2014, notes Dichter, but if foreigners don’t come there, “it’s hard to justify the exorbitant [Olympic] costs.” It also reminds you about underload railway from the airport to Sochi (the construction of it and the highway cost $10 billion).

There is also the issue of costs for maintaining Olympic facilities, Muller pointed out. Olympic Stadium in Sochi will be converted to host matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, but this requires additional money. The costs announced by the Russian government to ensure the operation of the facilities amounted to $400 million, and lost income (tax deductions for their owners, a moratorium on interest payments on VEB loans) amounted to $750 million per year, Muller calculated in 2016 (calculation was carried out at the pre-crisis exchange rate of 30 rubles ./$).

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