Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Reviewing the IOC evaluation committee's visit.

I found two articles describing how Koreans feel the IOC evaluation committee visit went.

The first, from the Joongang Ilbo, is objective but positive. The second paragraph:.
Korea is too limited in its winter sports abilities and Pyeongchang should improve its access to the giant slalom ski venue, but other than that, inspectors gave the city a good review for its bid to host the 2014 Olympic Games.

I first took 'too limited' to mean not enough snow, not enough height, not enough inanimate resources in general. I think Nagano had problems with the ski hills not being long enough and had to cut into a national park to meet IOC criteria. I expect(ed) similar problems here. Perhaps this is what the 'access to the giant slalom' comment means.

In fact, the inspectors meant:
Korea should be more well-rounded across all of the winter sports, referring to the country’s reliance on a few sports, such as short track speed skating and speed skating, for most of its Winter Olympics medals.
Korean athletes need to shine more at Winter sports, is the real message.

I believe Koreans have the ability to organize an excellent winter olympics, I am not as enthusiastic as Gangwon Governor Kim Jin-sun. Nor do I agree with why Korea would do well.

From the Herald:
Tenacity and calmness are two leading characteristics of Koreans, who have held a long history steeped in tradition.
I'll give Koreans tenacity. Koreans are tough, no question. Calmness? Not so much.

It is said that, in an era of digital technology, the tradition of using chopsticks at the dinner table has gone a long way in developing their manual adroitness and places them at an advantageous position in the semiconductor industry.
F-ck! Not the chopstick story again! I'm glad that Koreans, for whatever reason, are doing well with semiconductors but I'm not sure how this fits. Will this be a new Olympic event? "New this year is the 'Make a semiconductor with chopsticks' event. The Koreans expect to do well but may be surprised by the North American jobseekers who would 'separate flyshit from pepper with gloves on just to say they have a job'. A true battle of East meets West."

Due to their unique dynamism, the world has come to view Koreans as people who can even make mountains or rivers if necessary.
I think Governor Kim is showing his support for Lee Myoung-bak's presidential bid, with the 'making rivers' remark.

All sarcasm aside, I hope Pyeongchang gets the olympics here.
To finish this post, I am happy to see no news of corruption in either article. Finally the triumvirate is broken.

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