It was well after midnight but there were cheers and chants and claps all round South Korea as Pyeongchang, on Wednesday, was officially named the host to carry out the 2018 Winter Olympics.

South Korea to host Winter Olympics 2018

The city had been in the running for potential hosts since 2010, when it lost against Vancouver and in 2012, losing the spot to Sochi in Russia, both the times behind just one spot. This time however, they won effortlessly. The voting was conducted through a secret ballot that by the delegates of the International Olympic Committee. Pyeongchang received 63 votes where Munich received 25 and Annecy, France got 7. The voting was held in South Africa, in the city of Durban at the general assembly of the IOC.

The result was declared that followed a huge roar of cheering and clapping, as the president of IOC said Pyeongchang  has won through “patience and perseverance” and deserves the win. From outside the general assembly, the people of Pyeongchang, who had been up till late hours to find out the result of the polls, all celebrated with fireworks, chanting, and congratulating one another to be the proud hosts of the coming winter Olympics.

Pyeongchang, after Sapporo, Japan and Nagano, Japan, will be the third Asian city to hold the winter Olympics.

“New Horizons” was the logo that the community of Pyeongchang had been advertising all through this time and the mounting eagerness to host the winter Olympics waved through their flags at every campaign.

They had never been host to the games and having lost to other contenders, eagerly prayed to be it, this time round. The representatives of both Munich and Annecy, expressed their disappointed but also congratulated Pyeongchang for their sweep at the polls. Pyeongchang can empathize with both those competitors as the city itself was in their very position not once, but twice.

Pyeongchang is located approximately 100 miles east of Seoul, the capital, which has a population of about 10 million.

The 2014 Winter Olympics are to be held in Russia and the 2016 will be held in South America.

The head of South Korea Olympics Committee, Park Yong-sung said that it is believed that Olympics is for the rich and developed countries, and Asian countries rarely get to prove themselves but this is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how well the games can be held in Asia.

Leaving aside the Olympics committee embezzlement and corruption cases in South Korea which involved many of the high-degree officials of the country, the polls’ verdict has doubled the country’s nationalism and enthusiasm to play host to such elite sports event.

Tags: International Olympic Committee, IOC, Pyeongchang, South Korea, Winter Olympics 2018