South Korea Chosen as Host City for 2018 Olympic Games

The 2018 XXIII Olympic host city has been named PyeongChang, South Korea.

This announcement came today at the end of a two-year process and was announced by the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Jacques Rogge, at the 123rd IOC Session  in Durban, South Africa.

The two-year process involved the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) nomination of cities in their territories in July 2009.  In October 2009, the IOC named the three competing cities as: Munich, Germany, Annecy, France and PyeongChang, South Korea against the following set of criteria:

• Government support, legal issues and public opinion
• General infrastructure
• Sports venues
• Olympic Village(s)
• Environmental conditions and impact
• Accommodation
• Transport concept
• Safety and security
• Experience from past sports events
• Finance
• Overall concept

These three cities then responded to the IOC’s questionnaire and submitted their candidate files to the IOC which became their bid for the Games.

In September 2010, President Rogge revealed the IOC Evaluation Commision team (a group of IOC members, NOCs, athletes, advisors, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), and reps from the International Federations (IFs)) who traveled to each competing host city.

The main task of this Commission was to conduct a February-March 2011 on-the-ground analysis of the three Candidate Cities then to prepare a report of their findings for a May 2011 public report.

Then today, July 6, 2011, the 123rd IOC Session met in Durban, South Africa to make the final decision. PyeongChang won.

According to Olympic.org, “PyeongChang is the birthplace of skiing in Korea, as well as a key winter sports area in Northeast Asia. The city attracts 150,000 tourists from around the world and 3.6 million Korean skiers every year…PyeongChang’s bid for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is motivated by the desire to: Expand the Olympic Movement and create new Olympic legacies, Develop winter sports in Asia, Share their passion for winter sports and Boost regional development.”

Let the games begin.

Photo Courtesy of spcbrass via flickr