UCI president David Lappartient has hosted a visiting delegation from the Korean Sports Promotion Foundation (KSPO) at his organisation’s Aigle headquarters.
KSPO was founded in 1989 under Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, tasked with promoting continued use of the Olympics facilities, and promoting sports for the general public. Most intriguingly, this includes the operation of Korean keirin, primarily at the spectacular 333m Gwangmyeong Speedom, as a key source of revenue for continued sports investment.
In social media posts on 9 April, Lappartient hailed ‘great talks’ about a new velodrome in Seoul, ‘to be built within the 1988 Olympics venue,’ declaring it ‘a major step forward for cycling in the region!’
Separately, Korean news site chosun.com has reported that Korea Cycling Federation President Lee Sang-hyun met with Lappartient on 25 March, and described ‘the Seoul Olympic Velodrome remodeling plan, which aims for completion in 2029.’
Track cycling at Seoul 1988 took place on a wooden outdoor 333m track, 25km away from the Gwangmyeong arena, which has since fallen into a sad state of disrepair, as shown at the start of this 2025 Korean TV report.
All suggestions seem to indicate that this will be a 250m track – which probably rules out any connection to the plans revealed by DerbyWheel’s DJ Hyun last October last year about plans to hold events ‘on a indoor 400m track in Asia’ – with no current track in Asia currently fitting the bill, apart from those operated by Japan’s keirin authorities.
