In one of the biggest changes in the Olympic movement in decades, the I.O.C. decided on Monday to allow host cities to move competitions to other towns or even to other countries. The idea was to reduce the cost of hosting the Games by using existing facilities rather than building new ones.
I.O.C. officials have floated the idea of shifting the bobsled and lug events of the 2018 Games to Japan or elsewhere. But South Korea, where many people harbor resentment against Japan, its onetime colonial ruler, said on Friday that it would have none of it.
Cho Yang-ho, chairman of the Pyeongchang organizing committee, “reconfirmed that there was no possibility of moving some events overseas, as the I.O.C. suggested to Pyeongchang,” the committee said in a statement on Friday.
Although Mr. Cho supported the I.O.C.'s reform ideas, he believed “it was difficult for Pyeongchang to adopt them because the construction for all game venues has already started,” the statement added.
The I.O.C. is eager to reduce the costs of staging the Olympics to make them more sustainable, especially after the huge sum — $51 billion — that the Russian city of Sochi spent to play host to the 2014 Winter Games has scared off some potential bidders for future Olympics.
The I.O.C. president, Thomas Bach, had said that his committee was ready to discuss possible adjustments to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games and the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Coming venues like Pyeongchang and Tokyo have been hit by budget problems or delays in construction. This month, regional politicians in South Korea have appealed for more financial support from the central government, even warning that without extra support, Pyeongchang might have to give up its hosting rights.
South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism expects the total cost of the Pyeongchang Olympics to exceed $10 billion.
Some I.O.C. officials have suggested that South Korean organizers move some of their events to another venue, rather than building white-elephant facilities that will have little utility after the Games. Even though construction for the luge and bobsled sliding track has already started, they have suggested that terminating it now would save Pyeongchang millions of dollars, as well as annual maintenance costs. They suggested that Nagano, Japan, the venue for the 1998 Winter Games, might be able to step in to host those events.
But the idea was anathema to South Koreans. The rivalry between South Korea and Japan was such that when they both bid for the 2002 World Cup soccer finals, FIFA, the sport’s governing body, made an unprecedented decision to let them become co-hosts. Even then, South Korea insisted on having its name ahead of Japan in the “2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan” in return for Japan’s having the championship match played on its soil.
In recent years, the countries’ bilateral relations have been damaged by disputes over matters rooted in Japan’s colonial rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945, like its World War II army’s enslavement of Korean women in front-line brothels.
On Tuesday, Governor Choi Moon-soon of Gangwon Province, where Pyeongchang is located, said at a news conference that sharing the Games with Japan or another city in South Korea was “not an option.”
“The South Korean people would never accept it,” Mr. Choi said.
On Friday, Mr. Cho of the Pyeongchang organizing committee said that South Korea would consult with the I.O.C. over cost-saving and the post-Olympics use of the new facilities.
NY and Agencies