Major stakeholders of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games bid met Thursday and confirmed their approval of the bid’s Candidate File themes and guarantees to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.
PyeongChang 2018 bid Chairman and CEO Yang Ho Cho, Korean Olympic Committee President Yong Sung Park, Gangwon Province Governor Kwang Jae Lee, and PyeongChang Mayor Seok Rae Lee signed the Candidate File and Letter of Undertaking at a meeting in Seoul, South Korea.
The candidate file will be submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) next Tuesday and includes answers to more than 260 questions highlighting PyeongChang’s vision, its financial status, and its Olympic facilities.
Yang Ho Cho said, “the PyeongChang 2018 Candidate File is a fundamental document for the IOC’s evaluation of our proposed Winter Games plan and we are delighted to confirm that it has been endorsed and approved by all major parties involved with the bid”.
He added, “New Horizon’s is our motto and our message is that PyeongChang offers the most compact venues centered around athletes, and that Asia should host the Winter Games in order to promote winter sports here”.
He said, “hosting the Winter Games in 2018 at PyeongChang will help boost winter sports in Asia by promoting participation from Asian people”.
Gangwon Province Governor Kwang Jae Lee said, “though we failed twice we will surely keep our promise to the IOC. Based on the full support of the government we have installed new venues for events like the ski jump, biathlon and cross country and we will continue the Dream Program”. The Dream Program invites young people from countries that rarely see winter sports. It began in 2004 inviting 806 people from 42 countries over the past seven years.
Governor Kwang Jae Lee said “we shed a lot of tears during the previous two bids. And we will likely shed tears again, this time for the opposite reason”.
