Pyeongchang still hopeful of hosting 2014 Winter Games

The South Korean city of Pyeongchang remains hopeful that it will win the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics despite the award of other high-profile sports events to South Korea. 'I don't understand why this (holding of other events) has been made an issue,' Kim Jin Sun, the executive president of PyeongChang's bid committee, said. Some analysts have suggested that Pyeonchang's chances may have been harmed by South Korea winning the right to host the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu and the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon. But Kim said the competitions were only two of many international and regional sports events. 'It's not as if South Korea gets all the events,' said Kim, who is also governor of South Korea's Gangwon province. 'Asia has had less opportunity to host Winter Olympics than other regions of the world,' he said.The Winter Games have been staged in Asia twice, on both occasions in Japan. Sapporo hosted then in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.Pyeongchang was largely unknown around the world when it launched its bid for the 2010 Games but is now much better known, Kim said. After narrowly losing out to Vancouver in the vote for 2010, Pyeongchang's rivals for the 2014 edition are the Austrian city of Salzburg and the Russian city of Sochi.Kim also dismissed the idea that South Korean funding of international sports bodies and competitions had helped it win the right to host more events and may benefit its bid for the 2014 games. 'It is absurd to say that money can buy the Olympics,' he said.Kim is leading Pyeongchang's presentation at this week's SportAccord event in Beijing, where the International Olympic Committee is also holding an executive board meeting. The Beijing meetings are the last chance to impress the IOC top officials before final presentations at the IOC Congress, which will elect the host city July 4 in Guatemala City. The city says it is developing a 'highly compact concept' with a travel time of no more than 30 minutes between all venues and facilities, Kim said.'With our athlete-focussed and competition-centred bid concept, we intend to host a highly compact games,' Kim had said earlier.