Pyeongchang Still Awaits Its Olympic Payoff (Published 2022) (2024)

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang ended four years ago, but when he drives his taxi, Jeon Jae-gu still sometimes wears a ski suit bearing the region’s Olympics logo, along with a matching Pyeongchang Olympics hat.

His trunk is stuffed with leftover trinkets that he often gives to passengers — lanyards, gloves, tote bags and figurines, all commemorating those 16 days when this rural county, one of the poorest in South Korea, was the center of the global sports world.

“I believe the Olympics gave us a chance for a new image,” Mr. Jeon said. “I heard that its harmonious effects will take 10 years to form. Slowly, slowly, slowly, time will have to pass.”

Across the hills of Pyeongchang, reminders of the 2018 Winter Games are everywhere: in banners boasting a “Peace Olympics” with North Korea; in scattered statues of the Olympic mascots, in English menus on the doors of empty restaurants that once expected a flood of foreign guests.

One of the biggest vestiges of the Games has already begun to look like a modern ruin. The site of the 35,000-seat Olympic Stadium has become a mound of grass vaguely in the shape of an amphitheater, with a towering stadium torch remaining like a set of bones. A museum nearby preserves what’s left, its display cases filled with commemorative pins, coins and clothes.