2018 Olympics

The 2018 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as the 2018 PyeongChang, was an international multi-sport winter festival held in Pyeongchang District, Gangwon Province, South Korea on February 9-25, 2018, the day before the opening ceremony. Pyeongchang was chosen as host city in July 2011, at the 123rd IOC Session in Durban, South Africa. This was the second hosting of the Olympic Games in South Korea, having previously hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, but it was only the first Winter Olympics in the region. This was the first of three consecutive Games in East Asia, with the next two being Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022. This was the third time since the Winter Games were hosted by Sapporo and Nagano, both of those towns in Japan, an East Asian country. It was also Central Asia's first Winter Games to take place. The Games held 102 competitions ranging over 15 disciplines, a unprecedented number of competitions on the Winter Games. Four events make their 2018 Olympic debut: "big air" snowboarding, mass start speed skating, mixed curling doubles and mixed alpine team skiing. A total of 2,914 athletes from 92 NOCs participated including the national debuts from Ecuador, Eritrea, Kosovo, Indonesia, Nigeria and Singapore. Throughout the 2014 Winter Olympics, the Russian Olympic Committee was suspended after a state-sponsored doping programme was exposed, but selected competitors were permitted to compete neutrally in the special IOC group "Russian Olympic Competitors" North Korea agreed to take part in the Games amid the tense ties with South Korea; the two nations paraded together as a unified Korea at the Games; Norway led the tally with 39 national medals, followed by 31 in Germany and 29 in Canada. Germany and Norway, with all 14, were tied for the highest number of gold medals. Host nation South Korea has won 17 medals, five of which were gold at a Winter Olympics, their highest medal haul. The opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics took place at the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium on February 9, 2018; the $100 million facility was planned to be used solely for the opening and closing ceremonies of these Olympics and possible Paralympics, and was demolished upon completion. Many of the outdoor snow events were organised in Pyeongchang City, while some of the alpine skiing practises were conducted in neighbouring Jeongseon Borough. Indoor ice competitions were held in neighbouring city of Gangneung. The opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics was held at the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium on February 9, 2018; the US$ 100 million stadium was planned to be used exclusively for the opening and closing ceremonies of these Olympics and future Paralympics, and was demolished upon completion. The 2018 Winter Olympics held 102 competitions covering over 15 disciplines in 7 sports, making them the first Winter Olympics to exceed 100 medal competitions. The closing celebration of the 2018 Winter Olympics took place at the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium on 25 February 2018. IOC chief Thomas Bach declared the Games over, and the cauldron was extinguished. Television rights for the 2018 Winter Olympics were already sold in many countries as part of long-term television rights deals, including local Games rights provider SBS, which in July 2011 had extended its access to the Olympics by 2024. SBS had sub-licensed the rights to the MBC and KBS. On 29 June 2015, the IOC announced that Exploration Communications had acquired exclusive Olympic rights in Europe from 2018 through 2024. The pan-European Eurosport channels of Discovery were positioned as the main broadcaster of the Sports, but the free-to-air networks of Discovery, such as DMAX in Spain, Channel 5 in Sweden and TVNorge in Norway, were also involved in the programming arrangements in general. Discovery was required to sub-license, in each market, at least 100 hours of programming to free-to-air stations; some of these agreements allowed Eurosport and its affiliated networks to be exclusive to those sports. The deal originally did not include France because of the broadcasting rights of France Télévisions, which will continue until the Olympics in 2020. United Country.