The first 5G Olympics? Not quite, say bemused spectators

The Pyeongchang Winter Games was supposed to be the coming-out party for 5G, the next generation of wireless technology — but few people noticed. And some of those who did were unimpressed.

“It was okay,” South Korean spectator Lim Seol-hwa said, after visiting a truck outfitted with the technology, one of several demonstrations of 5G’s applications at Games venues.

“It was quite real and interesting to try. It would have been better if we could have actually tried it with our own phone.”

South Korea’s largest telecom, KT, had promoted Pyeongchang as the first “5G Olympic Games in the world”, arousing interest from investors, other telecoms firms and networking companies curious to see if the technology is viable and how exactly it would be applied.

KT’s marketing also led some Games spectators this month to believe their phones could use super-fast 5G — though that was never a possibility given 5G-compatible handsets have yet to be sold.

In KT’s 5G demonstrations, company representatives show videos demonstrating the speed and capability of 5G, using real-time, 360-degree video of athletes competing. It’s a feat that would be impossible on current 4G technology without buffering. The 5G speeds reached in the trials were four times faster than 4G, according to chip maker Intel, which partnered with KT. It allowed for crisp streaming of the Games’ action from all angles with no buffering.

KT also staged a “5G Zone” at venues allowing passers-by to also analyze video in short time slices. About 100 cameras installed around the Olympic ice arena gave 360-degree views for people watching on special tablets, Games organisers said.

While the 5G Zone at the Gangneung ice hockey area was promoted on Pyeongchang’s Olympics website, it was not available to attendees during hockey games and was based in an area reserved for Olympic families, making it hard to find.

American hockey fan Ben Dower was one spectator who had failed to spot the trial. “I don’t really know what 5G is,” said Dower, who traveled from Washington to watch a game between the US and neutral Russian athletes. “I’ve heard of the term but I just don’t know how it’s different from 4G.”

KT spokeswoman Jiyoung Lee said KT had limited marketing rights at the Games and that this in turn had limited its ability to promote 5G as much as the company would have liked.

A spokeswoman for the Pyeongchang Games organisers said in a statement that “KT has exercised their marketing and promotion rights to the fullest through various efforts within Korea”.

Makers of network equipment, device makers like Samsung Electronics and Apple and chip designers such as Qualcomm are counting on 5G to usher in a new wave of hardware upgrades — and income.

Network operators in South Korea, Japan and the US are preparing to launch 5G this year or in 2019, with China also likely to be an early adopter. 

The EU wants European companies to start offering 5G in 2020. “Unfortunately, 5G is being over-hyped everywhere. Carriers are desperate not to appear as though they are falling behind,” said Craig Moffett, a research analyst at MoffettNathanson. “The reality is that true 5G is still a ways off.”

KT spokeswoman Lee said it was “not right to say we’re making any hype on the 5G service now”. KT, which wants to be among the first to roll out 5G, is also demonstrating at the Games how 5G can be used in future in smart cities, such as in autonomous vehicles. 

One marketing expert, Rob Prazmark, chief executive of 21 Sports and Entertainment, who attended the Pyeongchang Games, said KT’s efforts reminded him of how Philips used the 1992 Games in Albertville to introduce high-definition TV broadcasting, but it took many more years for HD TV to catch on.

However, Jang Jae-hyeon, an analyst at LG Economic Research Institute, said KT had made a decent start.

“It’s still meaningful that KT really showed people what they have instead of a lab test,” Jang said.

Russia barred from flying flag at Games closing ceremony

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) dashed Russian athletes’ hopes of marching behind their national flag at the Winter Games closing ceremony on Sunday, deciding against immediately lifting Russia’s Olympic suspension after fresh doping violations.

Russians have been competing as neutral athletes at the Games, their Olympic status suspended, as IOC punishment for years of drug scandals involving allegations that Russia ran a systematic, state-backed drug-cheating programme.

The IOC said two Russian doping violations during the Pyeongchang Games had marred an otherwise clean report card for the delegation at the Games, though later on Sunday, Russia’s ice hockey team violated the IOC’s rules on neutrality by singing the Russian national anthem.

IOC President Thomas Bach said the two positive doping tests were impossible to ignore in making the decision to keep the suspension in place until after the Games close.

“This was hugely disappointing and, in addition to other considerations, prevented the IOC from even considering lifting the suspension for the closing ceremony,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in presenting the recommendation to IOC members.

Bach said Russia’s Olympic status would be restored automatically once it was confirmed there were no other doping violations by Russian athletes at Pyeongchang.

“That is an automatic decision,” he told reporters. “This is an objective condition... and then the sanction is lifted.”

The suspended Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) said it hoped to return to the Olympic family in the coming days.

“We hope and really count on that in the next few days, the membership of the Russian Olympic Committee in the IOC will be completely restored,” it said in a statement.

“In light of the situation, we consider that the restoration of the rights of the ROC and all Russian athletes will be the main result of the Olympic Games that are ending today.”

‘TIME NEEDS TO PASS’

Competition at the Winter Games concluded on Sunday and final drug-testing results might not be known for several days or even weeks.

“I‘m very disappointed,” said Elena Valbe, president of the Russian cross-country skiing federation.

“Some athletes stayed behind later with the hope that they would be walking under the Russian flag. I’ve heard athletes say that they were staying just because they wanted to walk with the flag and in our uniform.”

Former Olympic ice hockey champion Igor Larionov told Reuters it was hard for Russian players to stand on the podium under the Olympic flag when they won a gold medal.

“Time needs to pass for the right to have the flag back, I think,” the Russian said. “It is difficult for me to understand how any figure skater, hockey player or skier can win gold and stand on the podium without their flag. It’s sad.”

Bogdan Kiselevich, a member of the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) team that beat Germany to win men’s ice hockey gold on Sunday, said singing the Russian anthem at the medal ceremony had not been a spur-of-the moment decision.

“From the start,” he said, after he was asked when they had decided to sing it. “It has been decided with the flag so we had to do it.”

Kiselevich’s team mate Vyacheslav Voynov said the players had shrugged off the news that they would not be allowed to march with the Russian flag at the closing ceremony.

“We are not bothered,” he told reporters. “It’s of course sad for us. But if that’s what was decided then it has to be that way.”

‘DROWNING MAN’

Russia’s Olympic delegation chief and its figure skating silver medallist, Evgenia Medvedeva, had made a last appeal to the IOC on Saturday for their suspension to be lifted, apologising for the two doping violations during the Games.

Medal-winning curler Alexander Krushelnitsky and bobsledder Nadezhda Sergeeva failed doping tests, angering a team that had been through extensive testing before and during the first days of Games competition without returning any positive results.

The lawyer for Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Russian doping laboratory director who turned whistleblower and helped to expose the drugs scandal, said “cooler heads” at the IOC had prevailed and stopped Russia’s immediate Olympic return.

Rodchenkov currently lives in hiding in the United States.

“Thomas Bach was a drowning man but finally cooler heads within the IOC threw him a life preserver,” Jim Walden said in a statement.

“Yet, in the decision, the IOC had the gall to claim Russia ‘respected’ its decision on December 5th to institute the suspension. The acrimony caused by Bach’s mismanagement should be his undoing,” Walden said.

At the Games, the Russians have been unable to wear national uniforms or have their anthem played at medal presentations.

Russian delegation chief Stanislav Pozdnyakov has said that the prospect of flying the flag at Sunday’s closing ceremony meant more to his athletes than winning medals.

In December, the IOC had held out the prospect of lifting Russia’s suspension for the closing ceremony, on the condition its athletes met a strict code of conduct, including compliance with anti-doping rules and observance of athlete neutrality.