Image by wikipedia.org By Jolie Lathrop
Staff Writer The Olympics is one of the world's oldest sporting traditions, starting in Greece, and now it has spread all around the globe. They are well organized and the athletes are able to perform in the best conditions, but not this year. The Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang in South Korea in 2018. Many people are nervous that Pyeongchang will not be ready in time for the games. The snow is not good, the ice is nonexistent, and athletes are scared they may not be able to compete well enough to win. Average citizens are also scared that they will be unable to watch the great sports if the stadiums are not finished in time. “I don’t think that the Olympics will turn out very well because when I went the snow was really bad and I don’t think that they can really do much about that so they would be better off choosing a different location for the Olympics,” said Taylor Yoon 8th grader. Yoon visited Pyeongchang with her family in the winter of 2012, so she was able to see, first hand, just how bad the snow is. But the snow is not the only problem, the ice on the skating track is not there. Teams that are coming up to get a feel of the track are being turned away as the first seven turns don’t have ice on them. "The refrigeration plant is not currently stabilized to operate at maximum capacity and current weather conditions prevented the ability to maintain the ice," track officials said in a statement. With the ice nonexistent, concerns for the wellbeing of the Olympics are creeping ever nearer. The whole plan is behind and when the officials say they will be done, then they are not, it causes many people to question when it will actually be finished. “They have extreme delays and still a lot of unanswered questions, problems which are not solved and as it looks, not solved within the next year,” said international ski federation chief Gian Franco Kasper. Money is also a problem. The Korean government has offered to pay for half of the 66.2 billion dollar fine that is needed to build the stadium that is needed for the opening and closing ceremony. This leaves the rest of the 60 million dollar bill up to the people of pyeongchang. The government of Pyeongchang has already spent 1.5 billion on olympics facilities and is deeply in debt. Many people question is they will really be able to pay for the Olympics. People are also scared that the Olympics will be horrible, sloppy, and unprepared. Although the ice is not on the track, and the snow is more like slush, and bills are extremely high, people are still working furiously to make this Olympics work and run smoothly. Men and women are devoting themselves to the hard work of maintaining ice, making snow and building stadiums. Hopefully their hard work will pay off and they will be able to make the Olympics of 2018 a great one. Comments are closed.
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