Jump to content

Seoul`88


Kenadian

Recommended Posts

What a great resource for information on the '88 Games.

I love how they detailed the Opening & Closing Ceremonies.  I wish there were other sites like this out there for other past games - especially ones I have always been curious to see, like the ones before 1984 (my first Olympic experience was the LA Games).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice site on Seoul, tadeued! :wwww:  :cool:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barcelona is often mentioned as a prime example of the positive effects of the Games in a city.

But what about 1988.

The Seoul games not only lifted the city's profile, but put South Korea as a whole on the sporting map. When it was chosen, it was a bit of a shock that it had beaten Nagoya. Now some 16 years on, South Korea is one of the Asian sports powerhouses, it's co-osted a World Cup, is a serious winter games contender and has Summer Games ambitions again. The Olympics was one of the best things to happen to the country.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barcelona is often mentioned as a prime example of the positive effects of the Games in a city.

But what about 1988.

The Seoul games not only lifted the city's profile, but put South Korea as a whole on the sporting map. When it was chosen, it was a bit of a shock that it had beaten Nagoya. Now some 16 years on, South Korea is one of the Asian sports powerhouses, it's co-osted a World Cup, is a serious winter games contender and has Summer Games ambitions again. The Olympics was one of the best things to happen to the country.

Most definately... In my opinion, it marked the beginning of a new Korea that has become International.

1988 helped Korea to be involved with the world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i think both reasons are worthy for consideration, think about how busy most capital cities are world wide and having seoul as one major big city, ask a westerner to name another big city in south korea, they might have problems answering it. so maybe moving the central government to another city and establishing that is a good idea!  ???
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems the mp3s of 'Hand In Hand' are no longer available on the Seoul site..  Can one of our Korean members email the contact people for the site to see if they plan putting up the official report or any bid materials?  They would be a brilliant addition to the online Olympic library.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm, I wonder if the proposal really is about overcrowding and economic development, or more about shifting the government away from being so close to the North Korean border?

Actually, the move is more because the government wants to ease the over population as well as the high land costs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the 1988 Seoul Games get overlooked a lot in discussions on GamesBids.com.  We always talk about the terrorist attacks in Munich and Atlanta, the financial disaster of Montreal and how LA turned it around, the boycott years of Montreal, Moscow and LA, the huge success of Barcelona and Sydney, the construction worries of Montreal and Athens, the commercialization of Atlanta, and the impact that all of these things have had on the city, the country and the Olympic movement, but rarely do we ever mention the Seoul Games.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Seoul Games were well run, however they had their controversies.  The extreme corruption in the boxing tournament, the cleansing of dissidents and the homeless prior to the Games, the North Koreans cracking the sh!ts when Seoul declined to co host the Games with Pyeongchang...  But all in all they were outshun by the success of Barcelona, the troubles of Atlanta and the media eclipsing by Sydney...  Moscow 1980 also tends to get overlooked alot.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

great to see the legacy (memories...) of games available 24/7 online, does sydney 2000 or salt lake 2002 have one? i know that www.saltlake2002.com provides information about the park and tours available for visitors etc.... i wonder if athens 2004 will have one..... :oo:

here is similar site Sydney 2000

some about Barcelona 1992

andMunich 1972

and here is Lillehamer Olympic Park

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 years later...

Man, talk about an old topic. Well, yesterday was the birthday of a legendary athlete from the former USSR, who competed at his first Olympic Games at Seoul 1988. If you can believe it, it is no other than the former, world record holder in men's pole vault is SERGEY BUBKA:

Link: IOC-> Bubka: The Identified Flying Object

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

While killing some time yesterday, waiting for a niece I never knew, to come for a visit, I decided to rewatch the Seoul Opening Ceremonies. I hadn't see it since it for 18 years.

A few observations:

- Kinda sterile; and was certainly the last of the full daylight Ceremonies.

- They followed the Hangul alphabet for the Parade of Nations..so after Greece, it inexplicalby started with Ghana, etc., etc., skipped over to the end. So who knows what jumbled up order they will follow in Beijing?

- The barbecuing. Yes, one could see that a poor dove or 2 gave their lives for Juan Antonio Samarranch and the cause of Olympism!

- Now here's my favorite part: The Athletes came in early -- but after the Olympic flag came in, the lighting of the cauldron and the oaths; they were ordered off the field so that more Ceremonies could take place!! My kind of Ceremony! (Of course, if I were to direct it, we wouldn't bother with the athletes at all. Or make that portion maybe a CG effect.)

- There was the Little Boy segment! The kid who rolled in a little wheel -- and of course, copied by Athens with the little boy in the boat; was born on the day that Seoul had won the Olympic job. And at the end, followed by 88 more kids who were born on the same day all over Chosun. I imagine Beijing will have a little boy assembling a PC hard-drive for their version!!

- So they followed the rules of protocol but it seemed like a letdown after LA; seemed to have a little more joy than Athens.

- Finally, it ended with this avante band, Koreana, supposedly Korean expatriates who had been successful with their band in Europe. Yup, they did a kitschy neo-Eurovision-type "We are the World" number -- kinda similar to the thing done in Nagano in 1998.

Oh, and the judges' oaths. Yeah! All I could think of was --uh-huh, you sure disregarded those when it came to the boxing decisions! How farcical can the Olympics become!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

The election of Seoul as the 1988 host city caused some fear, because of the conflict with north korea & that a president of South Korea was assasinated time before the election. The main reason was to try to promote Korea and the peace. At the end, South Korea was promoted, but the relationships with North Korea were getting worst, since they decided to not participate because the comittee refused to co-host with them (then Cuba, as always singleminded, following the boycott as suport).

Even with the polemics, the games helped a lot this country to devepolp, and become a world-recognized country-

Now, in response to baronpierre, there was a time that the major part of the artistic performances were done after the protocolary part, Moscow 80 ceremonies began with the parade, speeches, raising of the flag, handover, flame & oaths, after that the athletes exit the stadium and a one hour show is performed. Some sport ceremonies of that time followed the example, like the Caracas 83 Pan Am Games opening (which was very inspired of Moscow).

LA did the things more like today, first the artistic part and last the protocol. Seoul mixed a little of both past ceremonies (artistic performances before & after the protocol), since Barcelona, all the ceremonies follow the ceremony-protocol order of LA'84 (and they're no more on daylight, probably after seeing the fireworks (kinda like a terrorist attack :lol: ) and the dove barbacue (hahahahaha xDD)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On top of that, rav3n, I don't know if this was some sort of sick urban legend, but when Seoul was chosen over Nagoya to host the 1988 Olympic Games, I read some article from a "local right wing magazine" that about 300 Japanese residents committed "ritual suicide" over the decision. Like, you want to kill yourself over that?? :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

xDDD well, no one is sure, with the japanese freakness everywere (although i heard that the Harakiri ''ritual suicide'' was already forbidden). Did that thing happend also when Sapporo lost to Sarajevo in 1984 and Osaka in 2008?

The strange about it was that Sapporo's and Osaka's losses here didn't create anything drastic at all. In any case, I don't know why would Nagoya residents could have been reported to do such a thing. Of course, this was the same city that competed against Calgary for Expo 2005. Since the Nagoya win was secured, but the city didn't really hosted it, then it makes me wonder what was going on in the end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...