South Korea to Host 2018 Games
In IOC vote, Korea beats Germany, France
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The South Korean city of Pyeongchang will host the 2018 Winter Olympic games, beating Munich, Germany and Annecy, France in an International Olympic Committee vote earlier this morning. It was Pyeongchang’s third bid for the winter Olympic games, having previously lost to Vancouver for 2010 and Russia for 2014. Munich, which hosted the 1972 summer games, had hoped to become the first city to host both the summer and winter Olympics. Pyeongchang spokesperson Theresa Seung Yun Rah said hosting the Olympics in South Korea wil increase interest in winter sports across the country. “It is a huge and robust market, with 650 million people under the age of 25,” she said. South Korea ranked fifth in the medal count at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, with 14 medals. Pyeongchang, located in the Taebaek mountains east of Seoul, will become the third city in Asia and the first outside of Japan to host the winter Olympics. The Japanese cities of Sapporo and Nagano hosted in 1972 and 1998, respectively.
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