South Korea knocks back hosting Winter Olympics with Japan
South Korea has knocked back any notion that it would consider sharing hosting duties for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games with Japan.
IOC officials had suggested splitting the Games between Pyeongchang and Japan’s Nagano, which hosted the 1998 Games, amid spiralling construction costs.
However, this has been knocked back in no uncertain terms.
Governor Choi Moon-soon of Gangwon Province, where Pyeongchang is located, said sharing the Games with Japan or even another city in South Korea was "not an option."
"The South Korean people would never accept it," Choi said.
South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has estimated the final cost of the Pyeongchang Olympics to exceed $10 billion.
Chairman of the Pyeongchang organizing committee, Cho Yang-ho, also backed away from the idea.
"It was difficult for Pyeongchang to adopt the IOC’s reform ideas because the construction for all game venues has already started," he said in a statement.
The IOC recently changed rules to allow two-country bids for future Games in order to spread costs more effectively.
The governing body believes a single city bid is becoming unsustainable and unattractive to potential bidders after the Russian city of Sochi spent a mammoth $51 billion to host the 2014 Winter Games.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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