Tongil Group To Welcome International Winter Olympics in 2018

The ski resort owned and managed by the Unificationist Tongil Business Group played a key role in attracting the International Olympic Committee to select South Korea for the 2018 Winter Olympics, according to recent published reports. The Yongpyong Ski Resort, managed by the Tongil Foundation (a South Korean business group providing funding for the Unification Church) of which Kook Jin Moon is chairman, will host the 2018 Olympics’ alpine downhill and slalom skiing.

The 2018 Winter Olympics will be the first time the Winter competitions will be held in South Korea, although Seoul successfully held the Summer Olympic Games in 1988. The announcement of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision on July 6, 2011 sparked euphoric celebrations in Pyeongchang, a county in South Korea which had been vying for years to get the Olympic nod.

Having failed to win the Winter Games in 2010 and 2014, Pyeongchang finally bested its contenders Annecy, France, and Munich, Germany on July 6, 2011, in what the Los Angeles Times called “a landslide victory.” Indeed, South Korea acquired a total of 63 votes out of 95, easily topping Germany’s 25 and France’s 7.

The International Olympic Committee unfolded that Pyeongchang, South Korea, would host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The Yongpyong ski Resort sports 31 slopes, 15 different lift facilities, Korea’s largest ski house, called the “Dragon Plaza,” and has a capacity for 20,000 winter-games participants. The resort frequently has

been chosen to host international tournaments, including the World Ski Cup Competition in 1998 and 2000, the Asian Winter Olympics in 1999, and the Interski Congress in 2007. Yongpyong often is listed as one of five of Asia’s top ski resorts. CNN describes it as “the oldest ski resort in South Korea and…one of its most popular,” home to “superb skiing.” And here’s an interesting tidbit for fans of Korean dramas: The popular 2002 TV drama “Winter Sonata,” starring Bae Yong Jun and Choi Ji Woo, was filmed there.

At the top of one of Yongpyong’s 15 lift facilities stands the Dragon Plaza, Korea’s largest ski house.

Pyeongchang is the third-largest county in the nation and lies approximately 110 miles from Seoul. More than 80 percent of its territory is mountains with average elevations of over 2,000 ft. According to Onthesnow.com, Kim Jin-Sun, former governor of Gangwon Province, where Pyeonchang is located, told delegates “we have kept our commitment to the Olympic family for over 10 years. We have been preparing for quite a while. We are ready. We worked hard and we will make you proud.”

During the celebration of his birthday this July in Las Vegas, Kook Jin Moon announced the news to his father, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who was delighted and satisfied that Pyeongchang had been elected without any financial expense to the Unification Church, according to eyewitnesses.

Recognizing the link between the Unification Church and Yongpyong, Japan Today reported that South Korean president Lee Myung-bak said that the nation would invest the equivalent of 40 billion Japanese yen into upgrading facilities, but also that some Korean media reportedly observed that the Unification Church is likely to be the “greatest beneficiary” of the 2018 Olympics.

With over 30 slopes and a capacity for 20,000 winter games participants, the Yongpyong Ski Resort in Pyeongchang has long been a candidate for the Winter Olympics.

According to Japan Today, Yoshifu Arita, a well-known investigative journalist and currently a member of Japan’s House of Councilors said, “For all intents and purposes, the [Yongpyong] resort is owned by the Unification Church. In books and other church publications, the hotel, condominiums, ski slopes and other facilities are introduced as ‘sacred territory.’ The site has also been the venue for ‘special training seminars’ attended by Japanese church members, at which founder Moon Sun Myung (now age 91) participated,” wrote Arita, a longtime critic of the Unification Church.

Arita groused: “Naturally I suppose a travel agency affiliated with the Unification Church has tied up with Japanese tour operators to promote tourism to the area. The church most likely is to benefit from the holding of the Olympics here. In South Korea, the church enjoys the status of “zaidan hojin” (foundation) and is recognized in Korean economic circles. .. From the Japanese viewpoint, when organizations engage in religious gimmickry, it may raise ethical problems, but I’m not necessarily saying I’m opposed to South Korea’s hosting the Olympics just because of this.”