Holyjoe wrote:I'm curious as to why you think the Munhak "wouldn't really cut it" for the Asian Games... it's pretty clear that construction of things like the rugby pitch, tennis courts and swimming pool were going to be necessities to host the tournament and they'll have lasting benefits for Incheon residents for many years to come, but the Munhak is not exactly your bog-standard dust bowl multi purpose arena that's been left untouched for 30-40 years. A wee bit of tarting up of a venue that's barely twelve years old and it would have been perfectly fine for use, as the Daegu venue was for the World championships after a similar makeover. Perhaps it will be turned into a national training centre for athletics which would be all well and good, but then again they're not exactly short of newly built venues in the capital region that could have served that purpose - Hwaseong is a perfect candidate, or Goyang, or even a tarted-up Munhak. The expenditure seems even more reckless seeing as Incheon city is in the midst of a fiscal crisis (see previous page of this thread as well).
The fiscal crisis of 2012, was in no small part due to all the stadia construction, it's not as if they decided to build this monster during or after that crisis.
As per a Munhak refurb, sure that could work. Perhaps that wouldn't be good enough to win the bid, though? I don't know anything about the bidding process or who they were up against. But I repeat, the Asian Games is a very big deal, just after the WC and Olympics. The Track World Championships is peanuts in comparison.