With a one-letter shift from lower to uppercase, the South Korean venue for the 2018 Winter Olympics, Pyeongchang, hopes to ensure visitors do not end up flying to the capital of North Korea by mistake.
Briefing the foreign media in Seoul yesterday, the governor of Gangwon Province, where the ski resort is located, acknowledged that the venue name was similar enough to Pyongyang to lead some winter sports fans dangerously astray.
“Because of the similarity, foreigners can get confused,” Gangwon Governor Choi Moon-soon said.
Photo: AFP
“So, in order to avoid further confusion, we have decided to rebrand it as PyeongChang with an uppercase C,” Choi added.
The governor backed his concerns by citing the example of Daniel Olomae Ole Sapit, a member of Kenya’s semi-nomadic Maasai tribe, who learned the difference between the two places the hard way.
Invited to attend a UN conference on biodiversity in Pyeongchang in September 2014, Sapit mistakenly flew to Pyongyang, where he was interrogated for five hours by suspicious North Korean immigration officials.
After paying a US$500 fine, he was eventually put on a flight back to Beijing.
The official Web site of the 2018 Games organizing committee already bears the new PyeongChang spelling, as do a series of TV commercials airing on CNN and Eurosport.
Pyeong means “peace” in Korean and “chang” means prosperity.
“We hope the games will bring peace and prosperity to the whole world,” Choi said.
Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is the record-breaking baseball “superhuman” following in the footsteps of the legendary Babe Ruth who has also earned comparisons to US sporting greats Michael Jordan and Tom Brady. Not since Ruth a century ago has there been a baseball player capable of both pitching and hitting at the top level. The 30-year-old’s performances with the Los Angeles Dodgers have consolidated his position as a baseball legend in the making, and a national icon in his native Japan. He continues to find new ways to amaze, this year becoming the first player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases
Zhang Shuai yesterday said that she nearly quit after losing 24 matches in a row — now the world No. 595 is into the quarter-finals of her home China Open. The 35-year-old is to face Spain’s Paula Badosa as the lowest-ranked player to reach this stage in the history of the tournament after Badosa reeled off 11 of the last 12 games in a 6-4, 6-0 victory over US Open finalist Jessica Pegula. Zhang went into Beijing on a barren run lasting more than 600 days and her string of singles defeats was the second-longest on the WTA Tour Open era, which
Taiwan’s Tony Wu yesterday beat Mackenzie McDonald of the US to win the Nonthaburi Challenger IV in Thailand, his first challenger victory since 2022. The 26-year-old world No. 315, who won both his qualifiers to advance to the main draw, has been on a hot streak this month, winning his past nine matches, including two that ensured Taiwan’s victory in their Davis Cup World Group I tie. Wu took just more than two hours to top world No. 172 McDonald 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to win his second challenger tournament since the Tallahassee Tennis Challenger in 2022. Wu’s Tallahassee win followed two years of
Taiwanese martial artists bagged one gold, four silver and three bronze medals at the World Junior Wushu Championships in Brunei, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Brunei Darussalam said yesterday. Liu Yu-tzu won the gold medal in the girl’s taijiquan A group and also picked up a silver medal in the girl’s taijijian A group. Hu Hsin-ling, Yu Min-hsun and Chen Chao-hsiang each won a silver medal in the girl’s jianshu B, boy’s nangun B and boy’s taijijian A groups respectively. Hu also won a bronze medal in the girl’s qiangshu B group, while Yu and Lin Shih-hung picked up bronze medals