President to make final pitch for Olympic bid

President Lee Myung-bak left for South Africa on Saturday to make a last-minute pitch for South Korea's third straight attempt to bring the Winter Olympics to its alpine town of PyeongChang.

The five-day trip to Durban, the first stop in Lee's three-nation African tour, comes days before the International Olympic Committee selects the host city of the 2018 Winter Olympics during a meeting in the South African port city on Wednesday.

Lee plans to lead PyeongChang's final presentation before the IOC assembly on Wednesday.

His trip halfway around the world to Durban shows how much importance South Korea has attached to PyeongChang's decade-long effort to host the Winter Olympics. PyeongChang lost narrowly to Canada's Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics and then to Russia's Sochi for the 2014 Games.

PyeongChang is now running against Munich of Germany and Annecy of France.

The snow-prone town, some 180 kilometers east of Seoul, has emphasized that its hosting of the Olympics will help promote winter sports in Asia. So far, Japan is the only Asian nation to have hosted the Winter Games, with Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.

South Korea is a winter sports powerhouse in Asia and home to world figure skating star Kim Yu-na. The country finished fifth in the medal tally in last year's Vancouver Olympics with six golds and came third with 13 golds in this year's Asian Games after Kazakhstan and Japan.

PyeongChang has also stressed as one of its strong points that athletes won't have to waste time on the road because all games facilities will be close to each other and accessible in just half an hour.

South Korean officials have declined to talk about the prospect of PyeongChang's bid, only saying that they will do their best until the last moment.

Another focus of Lee's African trip, which will also take him to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia, is to strengthen relations with the resource-rich continent, officials said. (Yonhap)