Your Excellencies and distinguished guests from both home and abroad, 

I wholeheartedly welcome you to PyeongChang here in Gangwon Province, the Republic of Korea.

The PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games will be opening in a short while. A festival of peace for people around the world is about to begin. On behalf of the Korean people, I am truly grateful to you all for having shown gracious support and friendship to the Republic of Korea and PyeongChang.

Gangwon Province has a plenty of things to boast about. From the scenic ocean and mountains, traditional festivals of local communities and healthy foods produced with natural ingredients, these are the pride of the region that I would love to enjoy together with you all. 

Among them, the cold of winter is a specialty of Gangwon that makes it just the right spot to host the Winter Olympic Games. Fortunately, the recent weather here is as cold as it gets. The ice is sleek and the snow is deep. An optimal environment awaits athletes who have trained hard in the cold weather.

Thanks to cold weather, we are gathered here today. In a way, the cold of Gangwon Province is a warm invitation sent to you by the Republic of Korea.

Your Excellencies and distinguished guests, are you ready to fully enjoy the winter in PyeongChang?

Shin Young-bok, an esteemed Korean thinker, once said that huddling together to brave the wintry chill with the body heat of the person next to you is “primordial friendship.” I am certain the friendship among all of us meeting today from every corner of the world will be further cemented in the cold of Gangwon Province.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, 

The modern Olympic Games originated from the passion of one great individual. In the late nineteenth century, Pierre de Coubertin had a firm conviction that the fair competition through sports could enhance not only physical strength and moral fiber, but also reinforce the will toward peace.

Now, about 120 years later, people around the world are paying attention to sports after revisiting the importance of a fair society. Sports can present a feast for body, mind and soul transcending differences in ideology, political systems, religion and culture. By means of sports based on fair competition, many have developed a challenging spirit and courage, respect for others and an awareness of a common community as well as the virtue of self-discipline. 

I would like to share with you a scene from 30 years ago at the Seoul Summer Olympics in 1988. The sailing competition was underway in the waters off Busan where I was born and grew up. During the competition, Singaporean national team members fell into the sea because of a sudden gust of wind. Lawrence Lemieux of Canada, who was in second place at that time, did not hesitate to come to their rescue and pulled them from the water. He ended up finishing the race in 22nd place. Even though he could not win an Olympic medal, the world awarded him with an even greater medal, the True Spirit of Sportsmanship.

The Innsbruck 1964 Winter Olympics in Austria presented an invaluable example of fair competition. The captain of the Italian bobsled team Eugenio Monti lent a sled component to the British team, a formidable rival. The British team was able to fix their sled and won gold. When asked by the press following the competition how he felt about the victory of the British team, Monti said that they won not because he had given them the bolt but because they just had the fastest time. He became the first athlete ever to receive the ‘Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy’ conferred by the International Fair Play Committee. 

Like many other countries, Korea now dreams of building a fair society. During last winter, the Korean people held candles high for a fair and just country. Preparing for the PyeongChang Olympics, we came to reflect on fairness again. 

We believe that, on the ice and snow in PyeongChang, we will see the next Lawrence Lemieux, who gave a helping hand to his competitors in peril, and the next Eugenio Monti, who helped his opponents play under the same conditions as his team.

Distinguished guests, 

Our sons, daughters, grandsons or granddaughters are now holding their own mini Olympics in their playgrounds, school fields or gyms. If our children become familiar with the rules and the importance of fairness through sports, the world of friendship and peace as envisioned by Pierre de Coubertin will come much closer within our reach. 

To help future generations realize the joy of taking on challenges to achieve goals and see the vision of a fair world through sports is one way to ensure the sustainability of the Olympics. The Korean people and I will make our best efforts to turn the PyeongChang Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games into a festival that can live up to the hopes of our children. 

I hope we all will be able to pool our wisdom and strength to ensure that fair competition among athletes permeate and become the unwavering norm in our everyday lives as well. 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

We have many heads of state and world leaders with us here today. This very moment brings home to me how meaningful and fortunate it is for us to have this kind of sports event in a world where conflicts and confrontations are ever-present. Had it not been for the Olympics, what would have made it possible for so many countries from around the world to blissfully come together like this?

Even as we are here together, many countries around the world have thorny issues to sort out between them. Korea is no exception. Had it not been for the PyeongChang Olympics, some of us might not have had chance to be together in the same room. However, what is more important than anything else is that we are all here together now; we can cheer for athletes together and talk about our future. We are here together and that alone will be a precious starting point for a step forward toward world peace. 

South and North Korea formed a joint team at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan, and won the women’s team competition. A small ball weighing 2.7 grams became a seed of peace.  

Here today in PyeongChang, the first joint South-North Korean team in Olympic history, in women’s ice hockey, is readying for the Games. The table tennis ball weighing only 2.7 grams has now been replaced, after 27 years, with a puck weighing 170 grams.   

The South and North will become one at the Kwandong Hockey Center tomorrow. Athletes from the two Koreas will work together for victory, and that will resonate with and be remembered in the hearts of people around the world as a sign of peace. 

The players in the joint team have already become friends as they lighted birthday candles for their teammate. There is no truce line in the hearts of these athletes who bring their sticks together and root for each other.  

I would like to invite you all to that special ice rink. A poet once sang, “A snowman starts with a snowball.”  The female ice hockey players from the two Koreas are now holding a small “snowball” in their hands.   

Together, we should start rolling the small snowball carefully with our hands. Now, if we put our hearts and minds together, it will continue to grow larger and larger and turn into a snowman of peace. 

Your Excellencies and distinguished guests, 

A few hours from now, the winter of PyeongChang will awaken to glory. Friendship and peace will be strengthened with the beautiful opening ceremony. 

All of you will witness fair and exciting contests here, and will become the champions of peace on the Korean Peninsula. I hope that our next generation will remember today and record it with a special footnote as the day of the Olympic Winter Games and beginning of peace.

I and the Korean people will never forget the friendship the world has shown in PyeongChang. We will return all your kindness with peace on the Korean Peninsula. We are ready now. 

Thank you very much.