Busan drops bid for 2020 Olympics

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BUSAN, July 7 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's largest port city dropped its bidding campaign for the 2020 Summer Olympics after PyeongChang won the right to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, the mayor said Thursday.
Busan, the country's second-largest city and the host of the 2002 Asian Games, announced its Olympic bid during a summit of Asia and Pacific leaders in 2005, though its campaign has long been overshadowed by PyeongChang.
PyeongChang, an alpine city in Gangwon Province, earned a landslide victory in a vote by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Durban, South Africa, succeeding in its third consecutive attempt to bring the Winter Games to South Korea for the first time.
PyeongChang's successful bid has derailed Busan's plan to host the Summer Olympics as the IOC does not give one country the right to host two Olympic Games in such a short span of time, officials said.
"We will abandon our bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics," Busan Mayor Hur Nam-sik told reporters.
Still, he vowed to explore long-term strategies to try to host the Summer Olympics in 2024 and beyond. He did not elaborate.
South Korea hosted the Summer Olympics in 1988 and co-hosted the World Cup with Japan in 2002.
The Asian country, which has become a sports powerhouse in recent decades, is scheduled to host the 2011 World Championships in Athletics next month.