Watched most or Sochi’s presentation, passed out right before Salzburg presentation and woke up to see second half of the PyeongChang presentation. I’ve never seen final Olympic bid presentations before, but it looks to me like they mostly focus not on Olympics, but on the effect of the Games and what it will leave behind. Sochi’s focus is region’s development for the future, as well as legacy (mostly material, venues and such) it leaves for the children for sports, and for Winter Sports to have another great place to held competitions.

The PyeongChang focused on unification of Koreas. I wonder what Salzburg’s team was focusing on? The Korean point of peace between 2 Koreas is awesome, I agree. But I don’t see any reason this will significantly improve relationship between two Koreas, and it‘s not just competitor’s talk. Yes, I know that South Korea is always trying to take steps toward improving relationship with North, if I remember correctly they even had US military base moved away from the border with North Korea. And they also agreed with North to march as single Korea during opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympics – but that’s it! South Korea recently hosted Soccer World Cup (together with Japan), which some argue even greater event then Olympics itself! (I’d disagree on this, though) How did that change the relationship with North? Unfortunately, it didn’t. And looking on their recent reaction on North Korean missile tests, I can’t say I believe the borders can open in seven years, even under pressure (and there’s really no pressure. The only pressure is on South Korean government which takes this promise upon itself).

As far as presentations, I liked Sochi’s presentation better than PyeongChang’s, more pictures and maps of what it will be like, and they even made a nice “one day at the Olympics” tour, showing how it may look for a family who came to Sochi for the Olympics, showing distances and travel times, and how it would look. Unfortunately I missed Putin’s speech, but I liked all Russian speeches that I saw – most of them are Olympic winners, and everyone had a personal story on how the Olympics had affected their lives, it was really great. The Koreans didn’t have anything like that (which, of course, doesn’t mean they don’t have Olympians whose lives were changed by their achievements in sports).

The bottom line is I don’t believe these presentations will change much, I think most IOC members already know who they’ll vote for. And of course you all know where my vote goes :)
Meanwhile, according to the news reports 30 000 “sochincev” (Sochi residents) are right now on the streets awaiting for the elections and the decision. Today was official day off work in Sochi…