IOC vote for 2014 Winter Olympics Race Too Close to Call

Arriving in Guatemala City in the afternoon of June 30 (KST) to attend the 119th IOC meeting, bid committee members for the Pyeongchang Olympic Games are making last-ditch efforts to win undecided votes since an estimated 30 percent of all IOC members are still undecided.

Gangwon Province Governor and executive chairman of the bidding committee Kim Jin-sun said, “The second round of voting session is highly likely to determine the host city. If we win their hearts at the presentation of the candidate cities stage, we believe there will be positive results. We will do out best until the final moment of the race.” The bidding committee spent the morning and afternoon hours rehearsing their final presentation.

After the rehearsal, which was not open to the media for the first five minutes, a 15-minute question and answer session followed. Tension was building as a panel of 15 university professors was giving the presentation team a hard time with complicated questions in preparation for unexpected questions from IOC members.

The bidding committee will have its first official rehearsal on July 2 at the Western Camino Hotel, where the IOC meeting will take place, and a dress rehearsal will take place on July 4. On July 5, the presentations of the candidate cities will begin with Russia’ Sochi, followed by Austria’s Salzburg, and South Korea’s Pyeongchang before the IOC members cast their ballots.

Meanwhile, about 10 IOC members were expected to be absent due to the country’s unstable security situation, but the real number absent will likely be just 4 or 5. Considering this, out of the total 111 IOC members, 97 or 98 members are likely to participate in the vote, excluding IOC president Jacques Rogge and the other 8 IOC members from the candidate cities themselves, raising the majority number of the first round voting session to 49 or 50.

zangpabo@donga.com