Olympics: IOC sees progress in Pyeongchang's games bid

The head of an International Olympic Committee team said on Saturday that South Korea's Pyeongchang has made "great progress" in its bid for the 2018 winter games, compared to two earlier efforts.

"We have seen great progress in the bid from previous two bids," Gunilla Lindberg said after the IOC team completed a four-day evaluation of the alpine resort's application.

The IOC inspectors have also seen "very strong governmental support" for the bid and "passionate support" from residents, she said.

Pyeongchang lost out to Vancouver for the 2010 event and to Russia's Sochi for 2014.

The resort, 180 kilometres (110 miles) east of Seoul, is competing against Annecy in France and Munich in Germany, with the winner to be announced on July 6. The IOC team has visited Annecy and will go to Munich.

Lindberg said her delegation was impressed by "excellent and high-level professional preparation, cooperation, hard work and warm hospitality.

"It has been wonderful to see so many people showing their support to bring the Olympic winter games here to Korea," she said, refusing to compare Pyeongchang's bid with competitors.

"We have seen progress in Korean winter sports during the last years," she said.

South Korea is vigorously pursuing its third world sporting event after the 1988 summer Olympics and the 2002 football World Cup, which was co-hosted with Japan.

It says it is time the winter Games came back to Asia, which has hosted the event only twice -- at Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998, both in Japan.

The resort has already invested more than $1.5 billion to build facilities, with seven out of the 13 necessary sites now in place. The central government plans to spend an additional $1.53 billion to bolster the bid.