Testing Times Ahead for PyeongChang 2018

(ATR) Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi tells Around the Rings he is reassured that the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics are on time to this point but "It is a very, very important few months we have ahead of us".

Dubi was part of a high-level IOC delegation including President Thomas Bach that visited the PyeongChang venues last week.

"We went through almost each and every venue," Dubi told ATR.

The delegation visited the Alpensia mountain cluster and Gangneung coastal cluster, along with non-competition venues such as the IBC, Olympic Plaza and the Olympic Village.

PyeongChang 2018 said construction of six new venues for the Games was 88-percent complete as of Sep. 23. The other six venues still need refurbishing.

Dubi expressed how the next big task for the PyeongChang Olympics is the 26 test events still on the schedule.

"From February to April, this OCOG will be really tested in not necessarily the fundamentals, because we know they are in place or almost in place, but the operational component," Dubi said.

PyeongChang will be hosting 18 test events in February and March, with two more in early April. The next official test event is the FIS Snowboard World Cup Big Air competition on Nov. 25-26. The first test event of 2017 will be the FIS Far East Cup in mid-January, where regional slalom and giant slalom racers will compete on the slopes of YongPyong Resort – a venue which has previously hosted FIS World Cup competitions.

For a full list of the PyeongChang test events click here.

The PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games will be held Feb. 9-25, 2018.

Written by Courtney ColquittandBrian Pinelli

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