The South Korean town
campaigning to host the 2014 Winter Olympics is to slash the number of planned
locations for the Games from five to two, hoping greater centralisation will
make its bid more appealing.
Pyeongchang, a rustic town in mountainous Kangwon Province on the east of the
peninsula, is bidding again to host the Winter Olympics after narrowly losing
out to Vancouver, Canada, to hold to 2010 Games.
"Within the new concept, all Olympic stadiums and the two Olympic Villages
will be centralised in the host cities Pyeongchang and Gangneung, within 30
minutes (of each other)," the organising committee said in a press release on
Monday.
"These changes will improve the accessibility to the venues, will result in
the athletes' convenience and overall will increase security," it said.
Under the plan, venues such as the hockey stadium, luge and bobsleigh runs as
well as the snowboard stadium would be moved from three other outlying areas to
one of the two planned sites.
The organising committee said some previous games have been marred by having
venues in too many locales, making transport for athletes, officials and
spectators inconvenient.
The International Olympic Committee in June named Pyeongchang, Salzburg,
Austria and Russia's Sochi on its shortlist to host the 2014 Games. The host
city will be chosen in July 2007.
Asia has hosted only two Winter Games, both in Japan -- Sapporo hosted the
1972 Games and Nagano the 1998 event.
