By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter


South Korea’s PyeongChang County will compete with six cities in its second campaign to host the Winter Olympics, following its narrow defeat for the 2010 event that went to Vancouver, Canada.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thursday announced the official list of six bidders to host the 2014 Games other than PyeongChang _ Salzburg of Austria, Almaty of Kazakhstan, Sochi of Russia, Jaca of Spain, Sofia of Bulgaria and Borjomi-Bakuriani of Georgia.

Several cities named as potential rivals of PyeongChang such as Oestersund of Sweden, Munich of Germany and Annecy of France didn’t submit applications to the IOC.

The city in Kangwon Province made its application on July 21, following the launching of the Bid Committee in March.

The winner of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games bid will be determined in the IOC session to be held in Guatemala in July, 2007. Prior to that, the field will be narrowed with the final candidates decided at the June 2006 IOC executive meeting. A field evaluation process will follow in February 2007.

“This time it will be PyeongChang. We won’t have another failure,” Kim Jin-sun, Kangwon Province governor, said in a recent press release. “There is no easy contender in the candidate cities as all of them are located in countries with advantages in winter sports. However, it is a cherished desire of all the Korean people to host the games and we are doing things as if we were starting all over again.”

hckim@koreatimes.co.kr