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Pyeongchang. A festive South Korea Thursday celebrated a crushing victory in the contest to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, propelling its ambitions to be a global sporting powerhouse.

The alpine resort of Pyeongchang, making its third straight bid for the event, won outright in the first round of voting by the International Olympic Committee in Durban on Wednesday.

Revelers in the resort 180 kilometers east of Seoul danced, shook hands and punched the air in celebration as fireworks were set off.

President Lee Myung-Bak, who travelled to Durban to lobby for Pyeongchang, called it a victory for all Koreans.

Newspapers said the Olympic success would boost the South’s standing.

The country has now secured its fourth global sporting event following the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, the 2002 football World Cup co-hosted with Japan, and next month’s world athletics championships in Daegu.

The Maeil Business Newspaper said “the dream has finally come true.”

“It is such a great pleasure and honour for a small Asian country like us to become a major world sports powerhouse ... now we should start building high-speed railways, highways and other transportation networks,” Maeil said.

Chosun Ilbo, the best-selling daily, noted that after the 1988 Olympics, “people worldwide came to have a new image of South Korea as one of the world’s most dynamic countries, not just as a strange nation torn by the Korean War.

“Now is the time for us to make the world realize that South Korea is not all about cellphones, shipbuilding and cars,” it said.

Research institutes estimate the economic benefits could run into many billions of dollars but for most people the achievement was enough.

“Pyeongchang achieved its dream,” read an electronic signboard at the entrance to the town which narrowly lost out to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics and to Russia’s Sochi for 2014.

“Our efforts paid off,” farmer Kim Il-Ki, 56, told AFP.

“I believe IOC members were impressed by our efforts, enthusiasm and consistent preparations for almost a decade. We are ready to greet visitors well.”

In Pyeongchang, Prime Minister Kim Hwang-Sik met national ruling party leader Hong Joon-Pyo and discussed follow-up measures.

“With Pyeongchang’s successful bid, our country became an advanced nation in sports by hosting the Summer Olympics, World Cup and Winter Olympics,” Yonhap news agency quoted Hong as saying.

Resorts and tourism sites in the eastern province of Gangwon, where Pyeongchang is sited, offered big celebratory discounts as did saunas, hair salons and hotels.

Some restaurants in Gangneung town, which will host some Olympic events, offered drinks and some food for free. Tourism sites scrapped admission charges.

Local farmers offered free Korean beef to 2,018 people in Pyeongchang.

“I’m so proud of Korea for achieving such success,” said student Park So-Hyun in Seoul. “Yet we must continue to make enormous effort so the world will be proud of us.”

Agence France-Presse