South Korean businessman Cho Yang-ho, who led PyeongChang's successful bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, "has been named as the new president of the organizing committee" for the Games, according to REUTERS.
Cho said,
"I have decided to take up this position to keep the promise I made with the International Olympic Committee to host a successful Olympic Games."
Cho replaces Kim Jin-sun, who "abruptly resigned as president of the committee (POCOG) last week." Cho had initially said that "he would not take up the role as he was too busy with his work running the Hanjin Group conglomerate, which includes Korean Air" (REUTERS, 7/30). In Seoul, Nam Hyun-woo reported the election "was held in the general assembly of the PyeongChang Olympic Games Organizing Committee." Cho "will serve out the remainder of his predecessor's tenure, which ends on Oct. 18, 2015." Speculation "arose in the Korean media that Kim was pressured to resign after the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) began an inspection of the organizing committee in May and that he was involved in illegally borrowing money from banks after failing to raise operational funds from Olympic sponsors." Cho "faces several urgent tasks."
First, he "has to aggressively find sponsors, because the committee has managed to only secure about 30 percent of funds necessary to host the event."
He also has to "speed up preparations for the event to construct necessary venues such as a speed skating rink and a downhill ski course" (KOREA TIMES, 7/31).
