Olympics: Seoul to bid for 2036 Games without North Korea’s Pyongyang, says mayor
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Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon (left) said Seoul will pursue a bid for the 2036 Summer Olympic Games without reviving efforts to co-host with Pyongyang.
PHOTO: SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT
SEOUL – Seoul will pursue a bid for the 2036 Summer Games without reviving efforts to co-host an Olympics with North Korean capital Pyongyang, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon told Reuters.
Amid hopes for better relations with the nuclear-armed North, Seoul sent a proposal for co-hosting the 2032 Olympics with Pyongyang
“I think the strategy for 2032 was doomed to failure because of unpredictable inter-Korean relations,” Oh said in an interview.
The 2032 bid sought to build on the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in the South in 2018, when athletes from both Koreas marched under a unified flag at the opening ceremony and fielded a combined women’s ice hockey team.
IOC president Thomas Bach welcomed the joint-bid at the time as a “historic initiative”. But relations have since soured again, and North Korea has tested a record number of ballistic missiles
Pyongyang routinely trades threats with Seoul and its allies in Washington, where officials say North Korea may be preparing to resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time since 2017.
Oh said Seoul would remain flexible to the idea of holding a few events in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) or Pyongyang if relations improved enough by that time.
The Korean Sport and Olympic Committee said it had not received formal statements from either Seoul or Busan on a 2036 bid.
It would be up to the individual cities in consultation with the national government to decide whether to jointly host with Pyongyang, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Qatar is expected to push to host thrown its hat into the ring
Looking to 2024, the decision on whether Russian athletes should compete in the Paris Olympics is the biggest headache facing organisers 500 days from the opening ceremony, former senior IOC officials have told AFP.
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine that Russia should be banned.
Yet, former IOC marketing chief Michael Payne said the last thing anyone wants is for the Games “to be overshadowed by politics”.
Payne, who in nearly two decades was credited with negotiating sponsorship deals that vastly improved the IOC’s finances, believes Bach is conducting “a very effective consultation process” on the Russian athletes’ conundrum.
He admits the IOC are caught “between a rock and a hard place” when it comes to taking a final decision on the Russians’ participation. He believes it will come in “the second quarter of next year”.
Former IOC marketing executive Terrence Burns, who since leaving the IOC has played a key role in five successful Olympic bid city campaigns, says the issue of Russia “is the biggest challenge for Paris and indeed the Olympic movement”.
“It’s unprecedented, raw, and tragic and there’s no simple handbook or case study on how to handle it depending on one’s point of view,” he told AFP.
The Paris Games’ total budget is €8.8 billion (S$12.7 billion), half of which goes to the organising committee and the rest to Solideo, the body tasked with building facilities. REUTERS, AFP
