The 2018 Winter Olympics are in Pyeongchang, South Korea, but why are the games being hosted there?
The 2018 Winter Olympics games are about to begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea, but how did they decide to host the competitions here?
The process of earning the rights to host games is long and arduous. There are presentations and multiple rounds of bidding, and of course the potential for some countries to bribe officials to win the games.
The Pyeoungchang committed actually bid to host the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, losing in the final round of voting, before finally getting the nod for 2018. The vote margin for each of those bids was three and four respectively.
The third time was indeed the charm. In the first round of voting for 2018, Pyeongchang nabbed 63 votes and runner-up Munich tallied just 25. It was a substantial margin and awarded the 2018 Games to Pyeongchang at the 123rd IOC Session in Durban in 2011. Annecy, France also bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics but received just seven votes.
“We have seen great progress in the bid from the two previous bids,” commission chairwoman Gunilla Lindberg said after inspecting the bid in February of 2011. “We have also seen progress in Korean winter sports during the last four years.”
Lindberg also noted “the passionate support of Gangwon residents.”
Several United States cities flirted with making a bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, but ultimately didn’t, including Denver, Colorado, Reno–Lake Tahoe, Nevada–California, Salt Lake City, Utah. No bid was made because the USOC was focused on Chicago’s campaign for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
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