Organizers for 2018 Winter Games to commemorate three-year countdown

The organizers of the 2018 Winter Olympics in the South Korean resort town of PyeongChang said Friday they will hold a commemorative event marking the three-year countdown of the competition.
  

The Winter Games organizing committee said the three-hour celebration will be held in PyeongChang, a resort town some 180 kilometers east of Seoul, on Monday. The Olympics, the first Winter Games in South Korea, will kick off on Feb. 9, 2018.
  

Before the start of the ceremony, the organizers will allow participants to try their hands at two Olympic events, bobsleigh and cross-country skiing.
  

There will also be a 3-kilometer torch relay with 60 bearers on hand. A mock opening ceremony will then run for about half an hour later in the day, the organizers added.
  

Toward the end of the ceremony, a time capsule will be buried bearing well-wishing messages for the Winter Olympics.
  

About 500 people from the organizing committee, the regional governments and the Korean Olympic Committee are expected to be on hand, the organizers added.
  

PyeongChang beat out Munich, Germany, and Annecy, France, for the right to host the 2018 Winter Games. PyeongChang had come up short in two earlier bids.
  

PyeongChang recently appeared to be under pressure to consider co-hosting the Olympics in a cost-saving measure, but Gunilla Lindberg, head of the International Olympic Committee's Coordination Commission on PyeongChang, declared in January that all scheduled events will be staged in South Korea as originally planned. (Yonhap)