Final countdown begins for Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympics

More

Published: 25 Nov. 2023, 12:05 Updated: 02 Jan. 2024, 15:08

Final countdown begins for Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympics

The Olympic flame is placed in front of a Gangwon 2024 banner in Chuncheon, Gangwon on Nov. 6 after reentering the province following a torch relay through five different Korean cities. [YONHAP]

The countdown to the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympics will hit 50 days on Nov. 30, with less than two months to go before approximately 1,900 of the world’s best young athletes descend on Korea for Asia’s first Winter Youth Games.

Korea expects to play host to athletes from 81 countries from Jan. 19 to Feb. 1 next year, with events taking place across Gangwon province. Events will mainly be held at venues that were also used for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, with all ice events in Gangneung on Korea’s east coast and the snow events spread across the mountainous areas of Pyeongchang, Jeongseon and Hoengseong.

Unlike the senior Games, tickets for all events at the Youth Olympics — with the sole exception of the Opening Ceremony — are entirely free and have been available online since earlier this month.

Although perhaps not as familiar to many sports fans, the Youth Olympics is a full-fledged international multi-sport event organized by the International Olympic Committee as part of the Olympic movement. Like the senior event, there are both summer and winter Youth Games, each held every four years and staggered with a two year gap.

The Youth Olympics and the senior Olympics intentionally operate on reverse schedules. A senior summer Olympics is held in the same year as a youth winter Olympics, and the same goes for the other way around — with the first Summer Youth Games held in 2010 and the first Winter Youth Games in 2012.

The Youth Olympics is generally open to athletes between the ages of 15 and 18, with some sports dividing the competition into age brackets. The sports are mostly the same as those competed in the senior events, although some may differ slightly to better suit the age of competitors.

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Yoo In-chon, second from right in the front row, inspects the Alpensia Sports Park Ski Jump Center in Pyeongchang, Gangwon on Oct. 18. [NEWS1]

A total of 15 events will be contested at the Gangwon Games: Alpine skiing, biathlon, bobsleigh, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, luge, Nordic combined, short track speed skating, skeleton, ski jumping, snowboard and speed skating.

The 15 sports in Gangwon are the exact same as the 15 sports contested at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, although the details of each event may differ. The Gangwon Games, for example, will only feature men’s and women’s monobob, rather than the two-man and four-man varieties.

Unlike the senior Games, the Youth Olympics are also designed to cater to a younger audience.

Events for younger audience members are spread across the Games venues, including opportunities to experience ice hockey, skating, curling, biathlon, cross-country skiing and ski jumping. As well as the sports activities, photo sessions, face painting, hands-on crafts and immersive virtual reality experiences are also planned.

2024 Gangwon Youth Olympics Organizing Committee Cochairperson Jin Jong-oh carries the Olympic flame after its arrival in Korea on Oct. 8. [GANGWON YOUTH OLYMPICS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE]

Young people were also involved in the creation of the Gangwon 2024 medals and even inspired the uniform design.

The medals for the Youth Olympics are unique to Gangwon, as club members from Gangwon Arts High School and Yanggu Middle School — both located in Gangwon — helped create the art that appears on the back of the medals.

The back side includes the image of snow and nature, while the front represents rain, symbolizing the athletes’ growth.

The uniforms for volunteers and personnel at the Olympics, unveiled alongside the medals at a 200-day countdown event in July, are red and white, with the red symbolizing passion and energy and the white representing the purity and infinite possibility of youth.

But the Youth Games are not just about symbolism and face paint — the sporting competitions are as serious as any other Olympic event and the athleticism on display is just as impressive.

In the lead up to the Games, the official Olympics website last month released a list of seven rising stars to watch out for in Gangwon. Included on that list was Korean figure skater Shin Ji-a, a favorite to medal in January.

Shin is a two-time world junior silver medalist, the only Korean to win a junior worlds medal since Korean figure skating legend Kim Yuna in 2005. She will arrive in Gangwon as the reigning world silver medalist and the reigning Korean champion. She also took gold in the two Junior Grand Prix events she has competed in this season.

Shin Ji-a [NEWS1]

Joining Shin on the list of athletes to look out for were Albanian alpine skier Lara Colturi, American alpine skier Annika Hunt, Italian alpine skier Ludovica Righi, Slovenian alpine skier Miha Oserban, Swiss figure skater Naoki Rossi and Italian freestyle skier Flora Tabanelli.

Success at the Youth Olympics regularly leads to success at the senior Games, with nearly 50 former Youth Olympics gold medalists going on to take gold at the senior Olympics.

That list includes Korean athletes Kim Jang-mi, Lim Hyo-jun, Shim Suk-hee and Hwang Dae-heon, as well as some of the most influential athletes of recent years like American snowboarder Chloe Kim, Chinese skier Eileen Gu, Australian swimmer Emma McKeon and Chinese swimmer Zhang Yufei.

Tickets for the Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympics are available for free at the official Gangwon Olympics ticketing website.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]