Pyeongchang Gets Highest Score for Winter Olympic Games

Pyeongchang’s bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games seems promising.

Pyeongchang received the top score of 64.90 in the newly updated BidIndex for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games released by the site the www.GamesBids.com yesterday. The Austrian city Salzburg is now second with a BidIndex of 63.93, followed by Russia’s Sochi (60.95).

GamesBids.com is a site specializing in Olympic news, such as information on countries hoping to host the Olympics and their BidIndex scores.

It was the first time that Pyeongchang, in its second try following its bid for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, has ever ranked first. On the other hand, Salzburg, which was ranked first since the start of the race, lost its lead for the first time.

As recently as last December 9, just before the announcement of the BidIndex score, Pyeongchang was third with a score of 62.01 following Salzburg (65.35) and Sochi (62.98). Pyeongchang’s score went up 2.89 this time around, while those of Salzburg and Sochi went down by 1.42 and 2.03 points, respectively.

The new BidIndex just released includes application data from the three cities and the results of IOC evaluation visits conducted earlier this year. This means the current ranking is very likely to remain the same until the IOC general assembly meeting in Guatemala on July 5, where the venue will be decided on.

Pyeongchang got high scores in the facility and infrastructure categories, including the public’s full support and enthusiasm, broad traffic network, and easy accessibility to venues.

zangpabo@donga.com