Gangwon 2024, the starting point of the Olympic year and the springboard for the next sports figures

Developing countries or emerging markets are terms that are mentioned and heard recurrently these days of the Davos Summit. Terms perfectly adapted to certain logics of Olympic sports in recent decades. Issues in vogue as we go through the first few minutes of the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon.

Today it is the South Korean city. In 2022, Beijing hosted the Winter Games for the seniors. Four years earlier, the same tournament was held in Pyeongchang, again in South Korea. The history of these tests and the Asian organizational quality is not new, but it is referenced in Japan, led by Sapporo (1972) and Nagano (1998).

The issue of South Korea and, especially, China is clearly remarkable. The first of these countries only won its first winter Olympic medal in 1976. The other one just joined these Games in 1980. Today, not only are they very valuable references in terms of providing venues for competitions that seemed reserved for North American or European cities, but they have experienced exponential sports growth. South Korea taking seventh place in the medal table in 2018. China astounding with third place in 2022.

From this Friday, January 19 to February 1, the Gangwon Youth Olympic Games 2024 will take place, the first major event in an Olympic year that will culminate in Paris 2024.

After Innsbruck (Austria), Lillehammer (Norway) and Lausanne (Switzerland), for the first time the Asian continent organizes the Winter Games and about two thousand athletes, between 15 and 18 years old, will be present in South Korea. “It’s great to be back in the region after six years, after the successful PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics and to see the legacy of these Games,” said Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Precisely, one of the keys to the choice of Gangwon 2024 was that it already had many of the facilities for the Games in PyeongChang, which will now host bobsleigh, skeleton, luge, biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping, alpine skiing, freestyle and snowboarding. The other venue will be Gangneung, where speed skating, short track speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey and curling will take place.

Gangwon 2024 has free tickets (except for the opening ceremony), gender equity, five new tests and also a change compared to the other editions, such as the fact that there will no longer be competitions with mixed teams made up of different National Committees.

From shining among boys to conquering the world

Many athletes had their first Olympic experience at the Youth Games and some later became big stars, such as Eileen Gu, ambassador for Gangwon 2024.

The figure of acrobatic skiing was born in the United States, but decided to compete for China because of her mother: she was a double Olympic champion in Beijing 2022 (Big Air and Halfpipe) at just 18 years old and in 2020 she was champion in Lausanne. “This event and the values it defends align perfectly with the message I hope to spread to young people around the world: sport is for everyone, regardless of gender, age, ability, geographical location and religion. It has the ability to bring people together and serve as a path for communication, empathy and friendship,” she said.

Like Gu, the American snowboarder Chloe Kim won the gold medal in Lillehammer 2016 and then became enshrined in PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022, while the Norwegian acrobatic skier Birk Ruud also won the gold medal in his country and repeated in China.

“For athletes, I think it’s a wonderful experience to compete in the places where their idols have been only six years ago and which they are following. These young athletes are carrying this legacy to the next generation of athletes. So it’s a real success story,” Bach said.

The president of the IOC sent a message to the athletes who will have their first Olympic participation in South Korea: “Make friends living the Olympic values and enjoy this experience of the Winter Youth Olympic Games, which for young athletes is a unique experience”.