IOC press official found dead in Pyeongchang

A member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) press commission was found dead on Friday in Pyeongchang, Gangwon, the host city for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The 62-year-old Chinese IOC press commission official, who was visiting Pyeongchang for the World Press Briefing (WPB), was found dead in his hotel room on Friday, according to local police. It was later reported that the official died of a heart attack.

The WPB is a meeting for international media representatives hosted by the PyeongChang Organizing Committee to give an overview of the current preparations for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. International media outlets as well as members of the IOC attended the four-day briefing.

Although the official’s name was initially withheld, the Xinhua News Agency, China’s official press agency, reported on Sunday that his name was Gao Dianmin and that he was a former Xinhua sports director who covered the Olympics for over two decades. According to Xinhua, Gao covered every Summer Olympics from 1984 to 2016 and was hailed by the IOC as “a bridge between Eastern and Western sports journalism.”

BY CHOI HYUNG-JO [choi.hyungjo@joongang.co.kr]