ATR First: No Chance of IOC Moving Venues from PyeongChang

(ATR) Ki Heung Lee President of the Korean Olympic Committee tells Around the Rings there is no discussion of moving venues from Korea for the 2018 Olympic Games.

Lee spoke with ATR just after delivering a report to the IOC Executive Board. PyeongChang 2018 and KOC officials had originally been scheduled to present to the board tomorrow, but the group’s presentation was moved up.

There was no decision of using alternate sites for events for the 2018 Winter Olympics due to instability in the Korean Peninsula Lee said. The possibility of alternate sites was raise by IOC EB member Gian Franco Kasper in an interview with Zeit Online. Kasper said that he was worried about potential boycotts of PyeongChang 2018 due to security fears. The Association of Winter Olympic Federations President mentioned Munich and Sochi as possible alternate hosting sites.

Speaking about the current political situation on the Korean Peninsula, Lee told ATR it was "hard to say," how it will look in February 2018.

"We think it is positive, more positive than negative," Lee said. "We wish [to bring peace] and we will try to make it that way."

Ticket Promotion Plans

Regarding slow ticket sales for the 2018 Games, Lee says an additional promotional push will come at the 100 days to go mark.

With 150 days until the 2018 Winter Olympics the last update showed less than 23 percent of tickets sold for the Games. Some high demand events have sold well in Korea, but the organizing committee will keep attempting to promote lesser known winter sports.

"The tickets are on the way to be sold," Lee said. "We have a special plan around T-100 days. We would plan a big event, promotion for tickets nationwide.

"Normally for the international tickets it's on the NOCs, they are handling this. So we kind of help them to promote for the Games domestically and with all the international works."

Written by Aaron Bauer, additional reporting done by Ed Hula in Lima.

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