The best way to get an overview is to take a walk in the sky. So into the gondola that takes visitors to the Alpensia resort in Pyeongchang County, South Korea, to the tower of the ski jump. Along the landing slope, the ride goes on a smooth track to the top of the hill. The 93-meter tower rises between a parking lot and a sculpture garden. The observation deck is on the fourth floor. There, through the large windows, you can take a tour of South Korea’s Winter Olympic landscape and see its built-up nature: the bobsled track that winds its way down the opposite hill to the south. The ski slopes next to it. The apartment blocks of the former Olympic Village to the west. The cross country center to the north against the silhouette of the Taebaek Mountains with the peacefully rotating wind turbines in the distance.
It’s been four years since this landscape shone. The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang did not fail to have an impact. For two weeks in February 2018, Alpensia was a center of the sports world. Much has been said about PyeongChang before that, because that’s where all the world-class snowboarders, skiers and skaters wanted to go. And then Pyeongchang was on TV again at the Paralympics, the world games for disabled sports. The organizers’ calculations seemed to be working. PR for a newly created tourism paradise.
And now? If you look from the Schanzenturm into the deserted Olympic scenery and wonder if this huge festival was really good for the area.
Skiers are out and about at the Yong Pyong Resort in Pyeongchang.
(Photo: Penta Press/imago images)
Winter Olympics is an investment in ski tourism and the development of distant regions for governments and business. That was also the case in South Korea. The sparsely populated province of Gangwon, where Pyeongchang is located, should come alive with more guests from all over the world. The games cost South Korea at least 13 billion US dollars. New roads were built and a new high-speed rail link established between the capital Seoul on the west and the city of Gangneung on the east coast, which hosted the ice sports competitions at the Games.
But skiing is expensive and has little tradition in a country like South Korea. In addition, Olympic sports such as ski jumping and luge require venues that are difficult to market to the general public. Sustainable use after the festival is a challenge. You need a good plan for that. And Pyeongchang didn’t have that at first.
It’s a sunny Wednesday in early March in Daegwallyeong, the municipality in Pyeongchang County where the Alpensia facilities and the site of the 2018 Olympic Stadium are located. The ski season has just ended. It’s not difficult to confirm the post-Olympic hangover stereotype. Because there is little going on.
International media have already written a lot about the failed tourism destinations in Pyeongchang. Only recently was the New York Times there, quoting Shim Dal-seop from a local rice wine shop, among others, who said: “Nothing has really changed.” The square where the opening ceremony took place in 2018 acts as the symbol for emptiness. The 35,000-seat stadium was dismantled immediately after the games, leaving a bare space between grassy hills. The torch in which the Olympic flame burned at that time rises up lonely. Large letters at the edge of the square form the word “Dream Program”. One wonders: Which dream program?
“When the games were over, many left.”
But it’s also not true that nothing is happening. A hotel operator is building new apartments in the village. Last year, after many unsuccessful attempts, the Gangwon province finally sold the heavily indebted Alpensia resort to a subsidiary of the KH Group for almost $630 million. Land prices are rising. In the pandemic, no wave of international travel could develop. In return, many locals came to relax and sports teams to train via the new roads. “Sometimes it was impossible to get housing,” says Arram Kim of the Pyeongchang 2018 Legacy Foundation.
Arram Kim sits in the cafeteria of the Olympic Museum, which opened in February 2021 on the site of the dismantled Olympic Stadium. He exudes a lot of optimism. He has to, too, because he is one of those who are supposed to make Pyeongchang’s Olympic legacy profitable with ideas.
Arram Kim was race director of skeleton competitions. Today he is trying to boost tourism in the region.
(Photo: Thomas Hahn)
At the Olympics, he was race director for skeleton competitions, as well as being responsible for the Olympic education program. It bothered him that hardly anyone on the Organizing Committee thought about how to protect the legacy of the Games. “Everyone was so busy making the best games that they didn’t have time,” says Kim, “and when the games were over, a lot of people left because their contracts were up.” He therefore founded his own foundation in order to be able to continue offering his program for education through sport in schools. When the South Korean government finally launched its own legacy foundation in March 2019, he became head of the education department there.
So now the foundation is trying to organize life after the games. Arram Kim says a lot has happened. Camps where students can learn about skeleton, cross-country skiing or Paralympic sports like ice sled hockey. Programs in which athletes from Asian non-winter sports countries learned to bobsled. competitions. training sessions. And the groomed trails at the cross-country skiing center are open to everyone. “All in all, we’ve done a reasonable job of utilizing the facilities,” Kim says. There are also plans for summer bobsledding and tourist courses with ex-athletes.
But the legacy of the plants is still a subsidy operation. And it wasn’t just because of the pandemic. Arram Kim says: “We have to promote our Olympic venues.”
A year later, memories of the Games were still visible at Gangneung Railway Station.
(Photo: Alamy Stock Photos/Pavel Dudek/mauritius images)
So people didn’t really think about it before the games: how Pyeongchang will remain an attraction and function as a coherent sports park for everyone in the long term. It is not very convenient to get to Daegwallyeong without a car. The bullet train stops at Jinbu, and it takes 20 minutes by taxi to the museum from there. The walks between the Alpensia plants lead along paved roads. There is a car sharing service at Jinbu Station. But no shuttle buses, no guided sports facility tours.
It can still come. Because in Pyeongchang you can also see signs that the new winter sports culture has a future here. Young Koreans from a cross-country skiing team train in the thousands of trails. In 2024, the Youth Olympic Games will take place in Pyeongchang. And in the tower of the ski jump there is no other traveller. But when you look at the art world of Alpensia, it also becomes clear: Something like this is very rare in Asia.
information:
Corona restrictions: South Korea requires – as of March 9, 2022 – a negative PCR test from all travelers, regardless of nationality and vaccination status, within 48 hours before departure. Upon arrival, all travelers must go into a seven-day quarantine. This can be completed either in private accommodation or in a state quarantine facility that is subject to a fee. The latter costs 120,000 won per day, the equivalent of almost 90 euros. Because regulations can change quickly, you should check with the South Korean embassy before you travel.
Arrival to Pyeongchang: From Seoul, a KTX bullet train runs several times a day to Jinbu in an hour and a half. From there, it takes about 20 minutes by taxi to hotels or Olympic venues in Daegwallyeong Township.
travel information: Plenty of information about goals in Gangwon Province, which hosted the 2018 Olympic Games, can be found at www.gangwon.to/en