디시인사이드

The first Olympics held in Korea and the second held in Asia after Tokyo in 1964.

Starting with these Olympics, Seoul changed its clothes.

First of all, let's start with why the 24th Olympics were held in Seoul (the process of hosting the Olympics is quite long, so please read about Seoul from the bottom).

In 1978, the 42nd World Shooting Championships were held in Korea in an underdeveloped country with a GDP per capita of around 1,000 dollars and a country without a proper stadium, and plans were made to host the Olympic Games in February 1979. Then, on October 26, His Excellency passed away. It seemed like everyone had forgotten about this, but the Olympic hosting plan was immediately revived. Ryuzo Sejima, who was acting as an emissary connecting right-wing forces in Korea and Japan, met with Chun Doo-hwan and mentioned the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, 1970, and Osaka Ex-12 Sports as examples, saying that Korea should also participate in such large-scale events. After receiving advice to take on the challenge, Chun Doo-hwan began to set his sights on the Olympics. However, it was a very difficult time to host the Olympics due to the timing, and most people thought it would be difficult to host the Olympics due to the democratization movement. However, Korea did not give up. Let’s give it a try!” We went forward with the mindset that there were four candidates for hosting: Australia, Greece, Japan's Nagoya, and Korea's Seoul, but Australia and Greece withdrew from the candidacy due to the oil shock, and it became a battle between Nagoya and Seoul.

But of course, the advantage is in Nagoya, Japan. Japan has hosted the Olympics, but it was also the golden age of Japan and preparations for the Olympics had occurred even before that.

It was expected that the expected number of votes would be only 3 from Korea, the United States, and Taiwan. So, Korea tried to quietly give up and asked Japan to support Japan for the 1988 Olympics and to support us at least for the 1986 Asian Games. In the end, I was so frustrated with Korea that I went with the mindset of just going as far as I could.

That's how Korea prepared hard, giving gifts to foreigners and allowing countries far from Korea to fly on Korean Air at the lowest price. While Japan could not speak English, Korea could speak English fluently. In short, Japan just thought they had won. So I didn't make any special preparations, but that was the main reason why Seoul was held. On September 30, 1981, the day of decision, the result was Seul! An unexpected result came out against Nagoya, 52-27.

However, although it was hosted, preparing for the Olympics was another problem. Foreigners would also visit Korea and sightsee, but at that time, Korea was so miserable that there were no tourist attractions. So, at this time, Seoul began to change its clothes.

This is Seoul in the 70s

This is Seoul in the 80s

What's the big difference? It is a high-rise building. If you look at the scenery within the four main gates in the 70s, you would have thought that there were no high-rise buildings, with Building 31 alone, but in the 80s, many high-rise buildings were built within the four main gates.

Also, during this period, the 63 Building, which was the tallest building in Asia at the time, was built.

I wondered if the aesthetics had been improved to some extent by doing this, but the problem was transportation. Since the airport is Gimpo Airport, it could be expanded and used, but the subway road is not as good as it is now.

So, a lot of subways come into existence at this time.

Line 2, which goes around Seoul, and Lines 3 and 4, which cross Seoul in the shape of an The appearance of the Han River was completely different from what it is now.

Let alone maintenance, the water pollution was really bad. But we shouldn't show this to foreigners. We need to change the scenery.

So we turned the Han River into a park.

In this way, we succeeded in improving the Han River and improving its water quality.

And the Olympics were ultimately a huge success.

This is because the previous LA Olympics and the Moscow Olympics were half-Olympic games without the Eastern and Western blocs, so it was thought that the status of the Olympics would have been lowered, but with the 1988 Olympics held, the Olympics were held so peacefully that the Cold War was almost over. It was the Olympics with the largest number of countries participating among the Olympics. As a side note, it was the last Olympics for communist countries such as the Soviet Union and East Germany. Anyway, this is truly worthy of praise for our country.