Official says N. Korean nuclear test won't hurt South's 2014 Games bid

For five decades, Kim Jin-sun's province has been agonizingly divided by an unsteady cease-fire on the Korean peninsula.
SEOUL, South Korea — For five decades, Kim Jin-sun's province has been agonizingly divided by an unsteady cease-fire on the Korean peninsula.
    While North Korea's recent nuclear test may have stalled plans for a unified Korean team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Kim, the governor of South Korea's part of Gangwon province, says recent events won't stop him trying to use the Games to help foster unity between the two Koreas.
    Kim is the executive president of the bid to host the 2014 Olympics at Pyeongchang, an alpine town of 46,000 nestled amid rugged mountains about 180 kilometers (111 miles) northeast of South Korean capital Seoul. Pyeongchang is in the South Korean part of Gangwon.
    ''Gangwon province is Korea's only divided province … For more than 50 years, Gangwon's people have felt the agony and sorrow of national division,'' Kim told The Associated Press in an interview.
    But recent moves to unify the two Koreas through sport have already stalled as a result of the North's nuclear test, which has drawn international condemnation and provoked a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for sanctions.
    Until this month the North and South — which are still technically at war — had been in talks with the International Olympic Committee about the possibility of entering a unified Korean team for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. But after the nuclear test, IOC President Jacques Rogge said the talks had been placed in limbo.
    Gangwon was split after the 1950-53 Korean war divided the peninsula, and remains separated by 145 kilometers [90 miles] of barbed wire along the world's most fortified border.
    Pyeongchang is one of three cities — along with Sochi, Russia and Salzburg, Austria — vying for the 2014 Olympic Games, and Kim hopes it will be a lightening rod for reunification.
    ''The Olympic movement is all about world peace,'' Kim said. ''So if this kind of symbol can be held here in Gangwon province, in Pyeongchang, this will serve as a turning point for further reconciliation between South and North Korea.''
    This is Pyeongchang's second attempt to win the Games. It finished second behind Vancouver in voting to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.
    Nevertheless, Kim says he is not concerned that recent tensions over the North's Oct. 9 underground nuclear test will undermine Pyeongchang's chances of success.
    South Korea successfully hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul despite its volatile relationship with the North, Kim said, and more recently co-hosted the 2002 World Cup soccer with Japan without incident.
    Rather, Kim believes the current focus on the Koreas could help his cause.
    By supporting Pyeongchang, the International Olympic Committee has a chance to ''make a meaningful contribution to peace on the Korean peninsula,'' he said. ''This is something no other region or country can say.''
    But the IOC's Rogge said any decision on Pyeongchang and a joint Korean team will have to wait for the political dust to settle.
    ''We were making progress,'' the IOC's Rogge told reporters in Tokyo. ''But the nuclear test has changed everything and we are waiting for the resolution of this situation.''
    Athletes from the North and South marched together at the opening ceremonies of the 2000, 2004 and 2006 Olympics — and also at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea — but did not compete as a unified team.
    If Pyeongchang wins the IOC vote next July, South Korea will become the second Asian country to host the Winter Games; Japan hosted the 1972 edition at Sapporo and the 1998 Games at Nagano.
    Last week, the South Korean national Olympic committee held a ceremonial groundbreaking at the $1.3 billion Alpensia complex — a 5-square-kilometer (3-square-mile) resort that is the centerpiece of the Pyeongchang bid.
    With eight new ski slopes, Alpensia is expected to feature venues for biathlon, ski jump, luge and bobsled, and have other facilities purpose-built for the Winter Games' highly specialized events.
    Gangwon plans to proceed with the project regardless of whether the Pyeongchang Olympic bid succeeds, in the hope that South Korea will become a mecca for athletes from other Asia-Pacific nations — where winter sports facilities are scarce — to come and train.
    ''If any part of the world is ready and capable to host the Olympic Games, they should be given real opportunity to host the Games,'' Kim said. ''In this regard, even though Asia is relatively underdeveloped in terms of winter sports compared with Europe and North America, we have a huge market and potential for winter sports.''