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Jeongseon) and enjoy the mountains and beach all in one day,” Sung says. “PyeongChang is also one of the few places in the world where you can hit the slopes by day and party in a major metropolis – Seoul – by night.”Seoul, Asia’s very own “city that never sleeps”, is only 180km away across the Korean peninsula, and many Olympic fans will fi nd accommodation there. They can reach PyeongChang in 70 minutes via a new high-speed rail link – shortening a journey that previously took three hours. Two new expressways will enable more people to reach PyeongChang by car with less congestion.Fans wishing to travel from Seoul – which has a population of 10 million – will easily be able to take day trips to the Olympic venues during the Games, and Sung believes many of them will be inspired to return in future in order to try out winter sports themselves.“It will be a wonderful legacy of the Games and will help us continue to open new horizons by making it easy for people from Seoul to make the journey to our winter sports hub anytime,” he says.Winter sports are generally fairly new for Koreans, and organisers have found themselves having to educate the local population when it comes to many of the events on the programme.One exception has been skating. The Republic of Korea has won all 53 of its Olympic Winter Games medals in the sport, with 42 alone in short track speed skating, nine in long track, and fi gure skater Yuna Kim accounting for the other two medals. The short track test event, an ISU World Cup meeting at the Right Local fans show their supportBelow left Park Je-un (KOR) in action at the Alpensia Ski Jumping CentreBelow right The Olympic rings light up in the host region to mark one year to goOnly the Gangneung Curling Centre, which opened in 1998, existed before building began for the Games. Both clusters have their own Olympic Village for athletes and there is also a media village in Gangneung.With less than a year until the Opening Ceremony, the average completion rate for the six new competition venues is above 96 per cent, while construction is projected for completion between September and the end of 2017 on the fi ve non-competition venues (the Olympic and media villages, the International Broadcast Centre and the Olympic Park).“With our compact venue plan, spectators will be able to visit all three cities (PyeongChang, Gangneung and ONE YEAR TO GO38 OLYMPIC REVIEW