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By The Numbers: The 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics

This article is more than 6 years old.

The 23rd Winter Games officially kick off on Friday with the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium. This is the second time South Korea has hosted the Games, 30 years after the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, and the third time Asia has served as host. The motto of Pyeongchang's winning bid, “new horizons,” meshed well with the International Olympic Committee's mission to expand the scope and popularity of winter sports to new regions of the world. It ended up beating out winter sport powerhouses Munich, Germany, and Annecy, France. Here are some key facts and figures that reflect the economy, athletics, and humanity of the 32nd Olympiad, which lasts 17 days through February 25.

HOST CITY

700: Meters Pyeongchang lies above sea level. Residents believe this is the optimal altitude for humans and animals to live and have coined their location as the “Happy 700.

43,700: Population; smallest to host since Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994.

111: Number of miles (180 kilometers) east of capital Seoul.

50: Number of miles (80 kilometers) south of the Demilitarized Zone dividing North Korea and South Korea.

14: Number of hours city is ahead of U.S. Eastern Time Zone.

17-35: Projected average low and high temperatures in Fahrenheit degrees.

BUSINESS

$12.9 Billion: Estimated cost of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

$3.5 Billion - $9.5 Billion: Proposed cost put forth in the city’s winning bid ($1.5 billion for the actual Games and $2 billion to $6 billion for infrastructure).

$50 Billion+: Cost of 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

$880 Million: Estimated International Olympic Committee contribution to Pyeongchang 2018 Organizing Committee.

13: Worldwide Olympic Partners

22: Number of times Coca-Cola has been a sponsor, the longest continuous partner of the Olympic games (since 1928).

1,000+: Number of contactless point-of-sale terminals operated by Visa, the exclusive payment partner at the Games, capable of accepting mobile and wearable payment.

3: Commercially available wearable payment devices developed by Visa –NFC-enabled payment gloves, commemorative stickers and Olympic pins that allow payment to be made with a simple tap at any contactless-enabled terminal.

450: Number of cameras Olympic Broadcasting Services will use.

5,000: Hours of high-definition coverage provided by OBS.

200: Number of countries/territories broadcasting coverage.

5 billion: Number of people who will have access to Winter Games television coverage.

$4.4 Billion: Amount NBC paid for the broadcast rights to the Olympics through 2020.

$7.65 Billion: Amount NBC paid for the broadcast rights from 2021 to 2032.

$900 Million: NBC ad sales generated from the 2018 Winter Games.

7.2K+: Ads to air during coverage of the Games, 31% more than in 2014.

2,400+: Hours of coverage from NBC, most ever for a Winter Olympics.

1,800+: Hours of live streaming NBC coverage, most ever for a Winter Olympics.

VENUES

13: Number of venues split between Pyeongchang and neighboring city Gangneung.

35,000: Capacity of Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium.

$60 million: Cost to complete it.

5,000-10,000: Capacity it will be reduced to after the Games when it is repurposed as a history museum for the 2018 Games.

51,130: Number of employees at the Games.

14,647: Members of the “Passion Crew,” volunteers who are helping the Games run smoothly.

5 million: Meal portions to be served at 13 competition venues, the Olympic Village, Olympic Plaza, Press Center and other venues.

1 Million+: Tickets made available for the Games.

$18: Cheapest tickets made available.

$74: More than half the tickets available cost less than this.

78%: Portion of tickets sold as of publication date.

$555: Current cheapest ticket available to Opening Ceremonies (as of publication date) on Olympics' official Fan-to-Fan reseller site.

$276-$878: Most expensive sporting event tickets currently available to men’s ice hockey gold medal game. (Closing ceremony tickets are trending close behind.)

EVENTS

102: Record number of events at the Games

  • 49: Events for men.
  • 44: Events for women, the most of any Winter Olympics.
  • 7: Mixed events, the most of any Winter Olympics.
  • 2: Open events where men and women compete against each other.

4: Events making their Winter Olympic debut.

  • Big Air snowboarding – athletes performing tricks after launching from large jumps
  • Mixed doubles curling – eight countries will field a team of one man and one woman.
  • Mass-start long-track speedskating – 24 skaters will line up for the final in rows of six.
  • Mixed team alpine skiing – sixteen teams, each to consist of two men and two women, will compete in a knockout format in which two athletes will compete side-by-side down slalom courses.

2: Events scratched since 2014 Sochi Olympics – men's and women's snowboarding parallel slalom.

15: Sport disciplines.

147: Number of medals for men.

132: Number of medals for women.

41: Number of medals Norwary is projected to win –a record most for any country- as calculated by Gracenote.

1.29: Weight in pounds of gold medals (586 grams). The silver medals weigh 1.28 pounds (580 grams) and the bronze 1.09 pounds (493 grams).

2: Mascots (Soohorang, a white tiger, and Bandabi, a black bear.)

ATHLETES

92: Record number of countries that will participate.

6: Countries making their Winter Olympics debut – Ecuador, Eritrea, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nigeria and Singapore.

2,952: Total number of athletes competing in the Winter Olympics.

43%: Athletes that are women. Team USA is 44.6% female (109 women).

3,500+: Total coaches and officials in attendance.

244: Number of U.S. athletes; the largest delegation for any nation in the history of the Winter Games.

  • 3: Number of medals (1 gold, 2 bronze) snowboarder Kelly Clark has won, making her the most decorated current female Team USA member.
  • 4: Number of medals (2 gold, 2 silver) speedskater Shani Davis has won, making him the most decorated current male Team USA member. In 2006, he became the first black athlete to win a gold medal in an individual sport at the Winter Olympics. In 2010 he became the first American to repeat as the 1,000-meter Olympic gold medalist.
  • 31: Age of Erin Hamlin, Team USA’s flag bearer who is making her fourth trip to the Games. She was the first U.S. athlete to win an Olympic singles luge medal since the event debuted at the Olympics in 1964.
  • 39: Age of men’s ice hockey captain Brian Gionta, the oldest Team USA Olympian. This is his second Olympics, the first in 2006. He won the Stanley Cup with the NJ Devils in 2003 and retired from 14 years playing in the NHL in 2017.
  • 17: Age of men’s figure skater Vincent Zhou, the youngest Team USA Olympian. He graduated high school at age 16. He is one of six 17-year-olds on the team.
  • 1: Mother on Team USA – Kikkan Randall, the 35-year old with a 1-year old son and marking her fifth Olympics in cross-country skiing.
  • 20: Fathers on Team USA.
  • 1: Married couple – pairs figure skaters Alexa Scimeca-Knierim and Chris Knierim, the only pairs team representing the U.S.
  • 7: Set of siblings on Team USA, including 1 set of twins, women’s ice hockey players Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando.
  • 7: Number of Team USA athletes with parents who competed at the Olympic Games. Men’s ice hockey player Chris Borque’s NHL Hall of Famer father Ray Bourque played for Canada in Nagano 1998.

22: North Korean athletes that will participate but march alongside South Korea’s athletes under a single flag during the opening ceremony.

169: Russian athletes who received a special exemption to compete after the country was banned due to a doping scandal.

49: Age of Finnish curler Tomi Rantamaeki, the oldest athlete competing at the Winter Games. This is his first Olympics in his 30-year curling career.

51: Age of Canadian curler Cheryl Bernard, the oldest athlete attending the Winter Games as an alternate on her country’s women’s team.

15: Age of Chinese halfpipe skier Wu Meng, the youngest athlete competing at the Winter Games.

$5 Million: Estimated earnings of Team USA skier Lindsey Vonn, the highest-paid Olympian at the Winter Games. Off the slopes her portfolio of endorsements includes Under Armour, Proctor & Gamble, and Beats by Dre. On the slopes she's backed by equipment suppliers Head, Reusch and Briko, among others. She has made $225,000 in prize money on the alpine circuit this season.

3.6 Million: Number of Vonn’s social media followers, the most of any female Winter Olympian.

Procter & Gamble

30.8 Million: Number of times social media followers interacted with Vonn, making her the most engaging Winter Olympian, per Hookit.

$4 Million: Estimated earnings of Team USA snowboarder Shaun White, the highest-paid male Olympian at the Winter Games. He makes the majority of his income from sponsorships with Burton and Beats by Dre, and partnerships with Air & Style, the music and winter sports festival he purchased four years ago.

5 Millon: Number of White’s social media followers, the most of any Winter Olympian.

$22,500: Average Team USA athlete salary.

$40,000: Average cost for U.S. Olympian to make it to PyeongChang 2018.

$37,500: Bonus paid to U.S. Olympians for winning a gold medal.

$22,500: Bonus paid to U.S. Olympians for winning silver.

$15,000: Bonus paid to U.S. Olympians for winning bronze.

1sts:

  • Sisters will play for different countries, against one another in the same sport. Hannah Brandt will play for the U.S. women’s hockey team and her older sister Marissa, adopted from South Korea at 4-months old, will play for the unified Korean team.
  • Three Nigerian women are the first African team to compete in an Olympic bobsled event, having made their first sled out of wood and scraps only four years ago.
  • Simidele Adeagbo is the first ever female skeleton athlete from Africa. Nike released a short film Forever First highlighting her achievements.
  • Adam Rippon is the first openly gay athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics for Team USA. The 28-year-old is also the oldest American rookie figure skater.

FANS

33.05%: Of Olympic fans online discussing skiing at the Games, the most of any Winter event, per Synthesio.

68%: Of Olympic fans online discussing the Games who are Millenials.

3.5%: Amount of Millenial-aged Olympics fans online who like skiing, the most popular Winter Games sport among the demographic.

13.58%: Of Olympic fans online discussing ice hockey at the Games, the second most of any Winter event.

Unknown: How much of that 13.58% is NHL fans discussing whether the league should have sent its players to the Games.

$7,807.50: Minimum starting cost per person of a 5 days/4-nights travel package from CoSport, the only 2018 Olympic Winter Games authorized ticket reseller for residents of the United States.

HEALTH & SECURITY

$18.4 Million: Cost of x-ray screening.

$1.2 Million: Cost of cybersecurity.

5,000: Members of South Korean military guarding the Games.

60,000: Total security forces mobilized. Included are: interceptor drones with the capability to drop nets over suspicious unmanned aerial vehicles that enter unauthorized areas, detection radar with signal-jamming guns that can take control of offending drones, and sensor systems to "sniff" and detect for various chemical warfare agents and explosive threats.

28,000: U.S. Forces Korea troops in the country that could be called upon in a crisis. The State Department has sent 100 diplomatic security officers.

13,000: Number of police officers mobilized for the Games

1,200: Olympic security guards quarantined after 32 tested positive for norovirus.

13,000: Trash cans made with proprietary paper-recycling technology by South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT to spotlight the country’s efforts to promote environmental protection.

110,000: Condoms available for free to athletes, the most of any Winter Olympics. That’s more than 37 condoms per athlete, which are worth about $93,370, according to Korea Biomedical Review. The company Barunsengkak donated 100,000 of the condoms at the Winter Olympics, and the Korean Association for AIDS Prevention donated the other 10,000.

Sources: International Olympic Committee, PyeongChang2018.com, TeamUSA, NBC Sports Group, Hookit, Statista, Synthesio, WalletHub, Forbes, Associated Press, Korea Biomedical Review.

For more Pyeongchang 2018 facts, figures and updates throughout the Games, follow me on Twitter.