Environmentally-friendly Pyeongchang Winter Olympics

 Have you all enjoyed the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics? With the bobsleigh team finals, the Winter Olympics of 2018 ended in great success. Behind the flashy drones and artful ice quality, however, there were sad news for environmentalists before, and during the Olympics.

 Since 1933, International Olympics Committee (henceforth IOC) applied a term called environment Olympics. This was after the 1992 French Alberville Winter Olympics, as the excess condos and resorts without planning resulted in one of the worst environmental pollutions. Henceforth, IOC modified the Olympic Convention so that the cities hoping to open the Olympics to submit a city planning that protects the environment. As such, IOC gave permission in the Sochi Olympics to remove three stadiums to other places due to environmental reasons. Since Gangwon-do, the province in which Pyeongchang is located, has long been famous for protecting the natural mountainous scenery of Korea, the construction is under much more careful planning and advising.

 Perhaps what was most controversial in planning for the Pyeongchang Olympics was the placement of the Jeongseon Alpine Center. As the planning for the Center was introduced to public, Green Korea United, along with many other environmentalist unions in Korea, caused an uproar as the blueprint planned to ?bulldoze 500 year old primeval forest for 3 days of tournament?. As a result, the Olympics preparation committee agreed to restore the forest after the competition, and reduce the amount of trees destroyed to 70%. They also arranged with IOC and the international ski association (FIS) to combine the women and men?s courses, a first in the winter Olympics. Though it may not be a great success, considering the fact that complete restoration is next to impossible, such arrangements show that development, leisure, and protection of the environment is not something that is hard to achieve. This example could be a good precedent for the Beijing Winter Olympics scheduled in 2022, as well as all the other Olympics that follow.