The Host City For The 2018 Winter Olympics Is...

"The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing that the 23rd Olympic Winter Games in 2018 are awarded to the city of Pyeongchang."

With those words spoken by IOC president Jacques Rogge after opening a sealed envelope, cheers erupted amongst the Korean IOC delegates in the conference hall

The third time was the charm in its quest to bring the Winter Games to Korea.   PyeyongChang was considered the favorite going into the IOC meeting in Durban, South Africa to determine who would be the host city for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

The city beat out its competitors Munich, Germany and Annecy, France for the honor on the first ballot, something that hasn't happened since Salt Lake City won the right to host the 2002 games on the first ballot in 1995.    PyeyongChang received 65 votes, easily surpassing the 48 votes majority required out of the 95 eligible IOC delegates to win.

Munich, Germany, which was trying to become the first city to host both the winter an the summer Games was second with 25 votes and Annecy, France received only 7 votes. 

The national delegations bidding for the Games aren't allowed to vote, and had PyeyongChang not gotten a t majority, Annecy would have been eliminated as the city with the lowest number of votes (as Chicago painfully remembers) and another round of voting would have occurred until a candidate city received a majority.    .  


PyeongChang was a frustrated bridesmaid to Vancouver and Sochi in its previous bids for the 2010 and 2014 Games.  It lost by three votes to Vancouver for the 2010 Games despite handily winning the first round of voting and by four votes to Sochi for right to host the 2014 Games.    

PyeyongChang's changes were looking good because the 2014 Games are being held in Europe, there were two European finalists and the IOC is loath to put them on the same continent in back to back Olympiads.   The IOC is also wanting to put the winter and summer games in terriitories where they haven't been before, and both times the Winter Games came to Asia in 1972 an 1998, Japan has hosted them in sapporo and Nagano

Today was PyeyongChang's day, and after their mayor receives the Antwerp Flag at the closing ceremonies in Sochi, they and all of Korea will be looking forward to February 9-25, 2018, the dates for the 23rd Olympic Winter Games.  

And for the cities that lost, there's always the 2022 games.   The IOC makes the decison who gets them in 2015.