Lee Hee-beom said that Pyeongchang 2018's final financial figures will be released this month.GETTY IMAGES
PyeongChang 2018 President Lee Hee-beom claimed that this year’s Winter Olympic Games "achieved a multi-million dollar surplus," according to Daniel Etchells of INSIDE THE GAMES. Lee was speaking during the opening of the PyeongChang 2018 debrief being held in Beijing, the host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics. His claim will be welcomed by the IOC, which "expressed hope that there could still be a surplus when books are officially closed." Lee said, "We are now putting together the final figures which will be released by some time in June. But with close cooperation with the Korean Government and the IOC, we achieved the surplus from the some $300 million deficit from when I became the president two years ago." Lee went on to claim that the surplus was achieved thanks to Olympic Agenda 2020, the "strategic road-map for the future of the Olympic Movement" (INSIDE THE GAMES, 6/4). YONHAP reported PyeongChang started the process of "sharing its Winter Olympic knowledge and experience" with Beijing. Arranged by the IOC and IPC, the debriefing will "wrap up" on Friday. The central objective of the debriefing is for PyeongChang to "help Beijing improve its organizational capacity by transferring and sharing its expertise, knowledge and experience" (YONHAP, 6/5).
RELIEF EFFORT: IOC President Thomas Bach announced the governing body will donate $150,000 to help the city of PyeongChang, which was hit by flooding earlier this month. More than 150 people were left homeless after the storms hit a low-lying area in the city near the PyeongChang 2018 HQ and the Olympic Plaza (IOC).
