Los Angeles Set Example for Seoul ’88 : South Korea Is Seeking to Duplicate Success of 1984 Olympic Games

The man who is likely to stand in the same spotlight that Peter Ueberroth did for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles said here Wednesday that the excitement generated by the L.A. Games could be matched or topped by the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

Lee Ha-Woo, vice president and secretary general of the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee (SLOOC), on the West Coast to deliver a speech, said in an interview that one of the legacies left by the L.A. Games, the volunteer program, was proving to be a good indicator of South Korea’s progress.

“We put out a notice last October that, for one month, we would take applications for volunteers for both the Asian Games and the Olympics,” Lee said. “By the end of the month, all the forms were gone and we still had people standing in line, wanting more. So we extended it for 10 days and we had to stop. If we had gone on, we would have had 300,000 volunteers.”

As it was, Lee said, SLOOC has 120,000 registered volunteers. It needs about 53,000 to help put on the Asian Games in September of this year (expected to be a full-fledged dress rehearsal for the ’88 Olympics) and about 78,000 to help put on the Olympics.

“There are many of these volunteers who will want to be involved in both, so I have a problem, even if it is a nice problem,” Lee said. “Right now, I’m not sure what to do with the extra people.”

Lee said that the L.A. Olympics had set high standards for future Games in many areas, and credited L.A. with much of the success of the volunteer concept. But he added quickly that Seoul did not expect to have the huge financial surplus that Los Angeles did.

“Our goal is to break even,” he said. And when told that that is what Ueberroth had said during the months leading up to the L.A. Games, Lee smiled and said, “Well, maybe we will have a hidden card somewhere, too.”

Lee said that one of the main differences between success in Los Angeles and success in Seoul is an intangible, the matter of expectations.

“In a developed country like the United States,” he said, “the expectations are not so much that the Games will take the country forward beyond the time of the competition. That is not so necessary.

“But in a developing country such as South Korea, we have the added element--and yes, it puts much pressure on those people putting on the Games--of very high expectations. In South Korea, it is the hope of many that the entire country will grow together, with the Olympics taking us forward. The Games become a total national endeavor, a national state of mind.”

He said that the beginnings of this so-called national state of the mind are evident in little things. “People are starting to line up at bus stops, rather than standing around all over the place,” he said. “We are seeing better personal hygiene . . . little things, but it is happening.”

Lee said that all venues for the ’88 Games are either completed and being used or in the late construction stages. And he said that all indications are that the Soviet Bloc countries will attend the Seoul Games, rather than boycott as they did in ’84.

“Last year, we had 13 international competitions in South Korea,” he said, “and the Russians, East Germans, Poland and many others competed. And when they left, they all said they were very satisfied and expected to be in Seoul in ’88.”

When told that that was also what Ueberroth had said during the months before the ’84 Games, right up until the day the Soviet Bloc countries announced their boycott, Lee just smiled.