Kimchee and soju beats pretzels and weissbier

Only one ballot was needed on July 6 for PyeongChang, South Korea to avoid being a three-time loser in Olympic bidding.

The Winter Olympics are going to the east coast of the Korean peninsula after a landslide win with 63 votes. Munich, Germany -- vying to be the first city to host winter and summer -- received 25 votes. Annecy, France only seven. The third-time lucky South Korean bidders are so elated that they haven't found time to change the logo on their website from "candidate city" to "host city".

PyeongChang famously lost to Sochi, Russia in 2007 for the 2014 Games and was defeated by just three votes four years earlier in the race for 2010 with Vancouver.

The three 2018 bid cities were the only ones who applied, a ripple effect of the Great Recession. It was the smallest race since 1981 when Calgary beat two competitors to host the 1988 Winter Games and Seoul beat Nagoya, Japan for the 1988 Summer Games. (By comparison, eight cities applied for the 2010 Games, four were shortlisted.)

PyeongChang was last to deliver the hour-long presentation to the International Olympic Committee members gathered in Durban, South Africa for the 123rd session. The presentation relied on Vancouver 2010 women's figure skating champion Kim Yu-na and Toby Dawson, the Korean-born, American downhill skier with Turin 2006 bronze.

The New Horizons slogan for PyeongChang reminded the IOC of recent trends in mega-event hosting. It's a new market for winter sports. The only two previous Asian Winter Olympics were both in Japan (Sapporo 1972 and Nagano 1998).

The fact that 19 of 21 Winter Olympics were held outside Asia was included in the presentation, much the way that IOC members were reminded that no Summer Olympics had been held in South America before they chose Rio de Janeiro's 2016 bid two years ago.

The man behind the scenes for both Rio and PyeongChang was Vero Campaigning Communications executive Mike Lee. Lee was also the key strategist behind London 2012 and the controversial 2022 World Cup in Qatar and he advised the International Rugby Board on its successful campaign to add rugby sevens to the 2016 Olympics.

During Vancouver 2010, Lee was busily connecting the PyeongChang bidders with IOC members at Korea House in a Hyatt Regency Hotel ballroom. Since the Salt Lake 2002 bribery scandal, IOC members have been banned from visiting host cities.

Ultimately, the influence of Korean conglomerate Samsung was key. The company renewed its global sponsorship in the mobile phone category before the 2007 vote through the 2016 Games and hosted the 2009 Olympic day celebration in Vancouver when cash-strapped VANOC could not afford to.

Vancouver was also where disgraced South Korean IOC member Lee Kun-hee was reinstated by the IOC just before the 2010 Games. Lee gave up his membership after a 2008 tax evasion conviction, but the Seoul government agreed to pardon him in December 2009. Less than a month after the Vancouver Games closed, Lee returned to the chairmanship of Samsung.

There may have also been some quiet diplomacy in back-channels by Ban Ki-moon, the former Korean foreign minister who is the United Nations secretary general. The UN granted the IOC observer status the same day in October 2009 that VANOC CEO John Furlong appeared for the approval of the Vancouver Olympic Truce resolution.

Canada has been involved in on-again, off-again talks with South Korea about a free trade agreement since 2004.

The Games will open Feb. 9, 2018 and close outdoors on Feb. 25, 2018 at the 15,000-capacity Alpensia Ski Jumping Stadium, one of several venues already built. The biggest construction project will be a 110-mile high-speed train line to connect PyeongChang with Incheon International Airport in Seoul in just over an hour. PyeongChang's Yangyang Airport is incapable of handling the Games international air traffic and will instead receive charter flights.

The biggest wildcard on the road to 2018? Look no further than North Korea. Will Kim Jong-il, the dictator of the "Hermit Kingdom," interfere in any way? Every year the "Dear Leader" seems to create headlines with an international incident on the volatile peninsula, where the war between North and South ceased in 1953 but never truly ended. China props up North Korea, while the United States maintains a heavy military presence in South Korea.

Of course, those in the Olympic movement would love nothing more than to witness the two Koreas be unified by sport and march into the opening ceremony under one flag and compete together.

Easier said than done. But it is a peninsula known for perseverance.