The hooks are still missing in the changing rooms cabins and the roads outside arenas are being paved, but the manhole covers are already decorated with Olympic rings.
First impressions for German athletes testing the venues for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, which open on February 9, 2018, have been quite positive.
Fabian Riessle, the Nordic combined team world champion, likes the short distances between the ski-jumping hill and the cross-country course at the Alpensia ski centre.
The technically elaborate sliding track - the first with LED lighting, according to the organisers - is nearby, with a magnificent view of the Rainbow Hill, where the Olympic slalom races are to take place.
"It all fits. It could be really cool next year," Riessle said.
Short-track racer Bianca Walter has had her appetite for the Games whetted by dancing mascots and the countdown clock in the 12,000-capacity Gangneung Ice Arena.
"Of course, there is still something missing, but this is quite normal a year before the opening," she said.
Construction work at the 12 competition venues, including six new buildings, is 99 per cent finished, says the head of the organisation committee (POCOG), Lee Hee Beom.
The hosts' concept is for the most compact Olympics. Most of the competition venues are to be reached in 30 minutes from Alpensia, where the press and broadcasting centre is still under construction.
Only the journey to the remote Jongseon alpine centre for the downhill races takes much longer.
The costs for the new buildings are about $US650 million ($A851 million), with the total budget at about $US12 billion ($A16 billion) dollars.
Infrastructure spending has included an under-development high-speed train line, linking the winter sport centre to the capital Seoul in around an hour.
Organising committee chief Lee is confident the venues will be re-used once the Games are over.
"Ten out of 12 sports centres have already found new owners," he said. There will, he says, be no "white elephants." The facilities have been praised, which "is very important to us," he said.
Ambitions are correspondingly high. Pyeongchang wants to attract as many foreign visitors as possible, particularly from Asian countries, despite tensions in the region, including the conflict with North Korea.
The Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988 raised the country's international profile, and it is hoped the 2018 Games will help Pyeongchang become a winter sports mecca.
"The target is to create a base for wintersport," Lee said.
A fundamental problem has been to spark enthusiasm for winter sport in South Korea.
For the official "One Year Before Opening" celebrations, the organisers planned 60 events.
Then the sale of the tickets will begin, of which 30 per cent are to go overseas.
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