ASIA / PACIFIC
February 15, 2016
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Holy trees spark debate on future of Olympic downhill course
By Andrew Dampf
AP Sports Writer
EONGSEON, South Korea — The
long-term future of the downhill
course for the 2018 Pyeongchang
Olympics came under the spotlight at the
Alpine skiing test event for the games.
Local organizers are hoping the
attractiveness of a completely new venue
— the first of its kind in South Korea —
will help shape the debate with
environmentalists and pilgrims trekking
to sacred trees lining the course.
When the venue site was selected a few
years ago, the local Gangwon province
agreed with environmentalists they would
replant the trees cut down and restore the
area to its natural state once the games
conclude.
“As far as I know today, that plan is still
valid,” Pyeongchang organizing commit-
tee chief Cho Yang-ho told a small group of
foreign reporters near the race finish area.
The 1.7-mile-long Jeongseon downhill
course is a rare competition-only venue for
a sport that normally relies on resorts with
a variety of runs for tourists.
Located about a 45-minute drive from
the Alpensia resort that will host the
mountain cluster for the games, the
downhill venue features only the race
course, an adjacent training run, and a
slalom piste for the combined event. There
are no other runs, no permanent lodge or
restaurant, and no plans to expand.
Construction of the single gondola was
only completed in January following a
series of delays that nearly forced the test
event to be postponed.
“We transplanted the trees and plants to
another location right now and we will
bring back and recover most of it,” Cho
said.
Skiers are mystified by the lack of legacy
plans.
“I cannot believe it,” said Italy’s Christof
Innerhofer, who won a silver in downhill
J
and a bronze in combined at the 2014 Sochi
Olympics. “I’m sure it’s a big opportunity
for the Korean people to have more passion
for skiing, to have more athletes. That
must be the goal to do Olympic Games in
new states — to have more countries that
follow the sport.”
Indeed, bankrolled by a president who
also controls the Lotte Group conglomer-
ate, the Korean Ski Association pumped
more than $4 million into the test event
and the development of Korean skiers.
One Korean racer, Kim Hyeon-tae,
made his World Cup super-G debut in the
race, and nearly all of the forerunners
were Koreans.
“We needed an additional downhill in
Asia,” International Ski Federation presi-
dent Gian-Franco Kasper said. “We have
Japan, we have now Korea, and we will
have China very soon, which means the
World Cup can have a series in China,
Korea, and Japan.”
Kasper added he was “100 percent” sure
the course would be kept.
“No question,” he said. “Koreans are
intelligent people, they know what to do.”
Part of the problem goes beyond the
concerns of environmentalists.
The venue is also a pilgrimage site for
local women praying for fertility at several
sacred trees.
“I understand the environmentalists,
but it was difficult to explain here why
they want to protect it,” said course
designer Bernhard Russi, the 1972
Olympic champion. “I went up with them
and said, ‘Tell me now where the trees are,
because I can go right or left.’”
When locals explained to Russi that
there were more holy trees on the proposed
women’s course, he scrapped plans for two
courses and just cut a single track for both
genders.
“We haven’t ruined more than three or
four special trees,” Russi said.
One of the sacred trees is adjacent to the
downhill course and was left standing.
“It’s strange,” Russi said.
However, the former Swiss racer would
not enter into the legacy debate over his
creation.
“We should leave that to the Koreans,”
he said. “They have to decide what they
want to do. ... I can say this mountain
(adapts) for much more than racing.”
DOWNHILL DEBATE. Spectators wave South
Korean flags as South Korean Kim Hyeon-tae crosses
the finish line during a men’s World Cup super-G
race, also a test event for the Pyeongchang 2018
Winter Olympics, at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre in
Jeongseon, South Korea. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefel-
bein)
Returning the venue to its natural state
would entail more than simply replanting
trees. Tons of landfill were hauled 500
yards up the mountain to provide a flat
finish area over a stream bed that
previously carved into a sharp valley.
“There’s 60 meters (yards) of fill,” FIS
technical operations manager Mike
Kertesz said. “So much work went into
making this because we needed a flat area
to work with all of our facilities.”
“Hopefully when people come and see
what we’ve built and what’s here they
could go, ‘Hmmm, maybe we could use
that? Maybe there could be a speed
program and this could be a great training
facility?’” Kertesz added. “The facilities
are World Cup class.”
The course in Sochi was also newly
designed by Russi and discussions are
ongoing about selecting the downhill
venue for the 2022 Beijing Games —
meaning that the downhills at three
consecutive Olympics could be held on
completely new courses.
“It’s ridiculous that they’re giving these
Olympic events to places that aren’t going
to do it sustainably,” said American racer
Andrew Weibrecht, a two-time Olympic
medallist in super-G. “That should be part
of the criteria for a bid — ‘Do you have at
least half of the venues or do you have to
build them all?’”
For his part, Cho would like at the very
least to keep the gondola in place.
“Even if they replant it, still we can use
(the) gondola,” he said. “I went to the
Dolomites and all of the mountains in the
summer are used by hikers going up (lifts).
So why can’t we do it? A lot of Koreans love
hiking.”
Furniture giant IKEA loses its trademark in Indonesia
By Niniek Karmini
The Associated Press
AKARTA, Indonesia
— There is Samsung
of South Korea,
Sony of Japan, BMW of
Germany, and IKEA of
Indonesia. Wait! IKEA of
Indonesia? Yes, at least in
Indonesia, if not world-
wide.
The furniture giant,
founded in Sweden in 1943,
has lost a trademark
dispute in Indonesia after
the country’s highest court
agreed the IKEA name was
owned by a local company.
Indonesian rattan furni-
ture company PT Ratania
Khatulistiwa registered its
IKEA
trademark
in
December 2013. It’s an
acronym of the Indonesian
words Intan Khatulistiwa
Esa Abadi, which refer to
the rattan industry.
The Supreme Court’s
ruling was made in May
last year, but only recently
surfaced publicly with its
publication online by the
court.
The ruling said IKEA,
which registered its trade-
mark in Indonesia in 2010,
had not actively used the
trademark in three con-
secutive
years
for
commercial purposes and it
could be deleted under
Indonesia’s
trademark
J
law.
IKEA’s only outlet in
Indonesia opened near the
capital, Jakarta, in late
2014.
Supreme Court spokes-
man Suhadi, who goes by
one name, said the ruling
was not unanimous. One
member of the three-judge
panel said in his dissent
that the trademark law
cannot be applied to a
company as big as IKEA
and much larger than the
plaintiff, Ratania.
Officials at Ratania,
which is located in Indo-
nesia’s second-largest city,
Surabaya, refused to com-
ment. Inter IKEA Systems
B.V., the worldwide IKEA
franchisor, said its lawyers
were notified of the deci-
sion in early February and
were still studying it. But it
said it expected that IKEA
operations would be able to
continue in the country
without interruption.
The Indonesian company
took its case to the Central
Jakarta District Court in
mid-2014, when the first
IKEA store in Indonesia
was under construction.
The court ruled in
September 2014 that the
trademark was owned by
Ratania and ordered IKEA
to stop using its own name,
which is an acronym for its
founder, Ingvar Kamprad,
and the farm Elmtaryd and
village Agunnaryd where
he grew up. IKEA appealed
to the Supreme Court last
year.
IKEA stores around the
world are run under a
franchise system. Since the
early 1980s, the IKEA
Group has been owned by a
foundation registered in
the Netherlands.
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