“The majority of complaints I get from the South Korean media are that the Organising Committee’s business cards are too fancy,” he told me. “I guess if that’s all they have to complain about, we must be doing something right.”

On face value, it is difficult to argue with his point. If such a minor aspect of their preparations is the principle issue among the local press - who can often provide a clear gauge as to what is happening on the ground in any host city - Pyeongchang 2018 must be getting something right.

But on the other hand, there’s no doubt there are cracks underneath the surface, brought to light by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Coordination Commission’s sixth inspection visit this week.

The message touted by Gunilla Lindberg, the Swede who is also a member of the IOC’s powerful Executive Board, is always one of confidence that when push comes to shove, the Organising Committee will produce a show worthy of the Olympic stage.

“There is still a lot of work to do, but Pyeongchang 2018 is on track to deliver great Olympic Winter Games for South Korea and the world,” the Coordination Commission chair told the waiting media at the closing press conference. “We are pleased with what we have seen and heard during our visit.”

Yet, during her opening address on the first full day of meetings with local officials and with Pyeongchang 2018 staff, the worry in Lindberg’s voice when speaking about the state of construction work at non-competition venues, such as the International Broadcast Centre (IBC), was palpable.

Having driven past the site where the IBC will be located on my last visit to the quiet and quaint South Korean region in September, it would have been easy to see why there were growing fears within the IOC. The fact that progress there in the six months since has crawled along at snail’s pace - largely due to local squabbling between the Gangwon Province and construction companies - only goes to intensify the concerns.

It remains, at this point, a mere plot of land, with barely a foundation laid for a facility which will be crucial to exhibiting the best the country has to offer when the first-ever Winter Olympics and Paralympics in South Korea are held in 2018. On the flipside, perhaps the IOC would rather the non-competition venues be struggling rather than those where the athletes - who are at the “heart of the Games”, as Lindberg continually says - will perform to the world.

The local view is again one of optimism. They have every faith that the various arenas and structures will be completed on time.

Credit where credit is due, the competition venues themselves have come on leaps and bounds. All those initial caveats from the IOC about readiness and whether they would be finished in line with tight deadlines seem to have dissipated into the cold South Korean air. I got the impression that the conviction of the Coordination Commission was far more than just rhetoric.

The facilities at the Gangneung Olympic Park, due to be the home to the majority ice sports at Pyeongchang 2018 such as curling, ice hockey and speed skating, do look impressive. Providing they do not experience too many glitches, they are set to be venues that the locals can be proud of.

The venues are not without their troubles, however. At the beginning of this month, a host of the world’s top lugers and sliders, including Germany's three-time Olympic champion Felix Loch, travelled to the Alpensia Sliding Centre to test the course and see what it was made of. They were only able to use the bottom part of the track, though, due to a refrigeration issue on the upper section.

A wasted journey for many provided a snag to Pyeongchang 2018’s preparations. The issue dominated a large proportion of the questions at the closing press conference - never before has the word pre-homologation been so prominent - as the media dissected the reasons as to why it happened. We still do not quite know the answer.

A meeting to discuss what went wrong is planned for the coming weeks, with further tests due to take place as planned in October.

Lindberg had admitted organisers had “fallen short of expectations” in this area but the IOC have been given guarantees that the problem will be rectified. They expect it to be a slight hindrance rather than a severe obstacle for Pyeongchang 2018 to clear.

“It was an event we didn’t manage to fulfil because of the problems of with the ice.," said Lindberg. "They are working on it now to find a reason and we are now planning for the next event. We don’t see it as a big thing.

“They had problems with the ice so they have to do that again and that’s the whole purpose of the test events, you test and you are allowed to make mistakes. They will work on that.”

All the talk was about venues but that old adage also cropped up during the Coordination Commission’s visit as the topic of legacy came to the fore, which has presented another question that Pyeongchang 2018 must answer.

From what I saw during my brief stay, there appears to be no discernible, concrete legacy structure for a large amount of the venues which will be utilised during the Games. In Gangneung, for example, an obvious dilemma exists for organisers as they must decide what they will become post-Olympics, and as many of the ice facilities are similar, finding varying uses for them may prove tricky.

Legacy is often used as a barometer for success after major sporting events and it is important Pyeongchang 2018 tick the right boxes. After all, a set of highly-expensive venues for sports which are hardly frequently practised in South Korea located in two fairly remote regions is not  a recipe for success.

They will be keen to avoid the mistake made by the last Asian hosts of an Olympic Games, with the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing often paraded as an example of a white elephant. Several options are on the table - the decision to potentially keep the Gangneung Oval intact rather than demolishing it is the beginning of a process which will be constantly questioned on the road to 2018 and beyond.

A far more important and concerning factor emerged this week, however, following reports of the deaths of two workers at Pyeongchang 2018 construction sites last year. The Building and Wood Workers' Union International, on behalf of the Korean Federation of Construction Industry Trade Unions (KFCITU), had suggested these were because of “dangerous” and “unsafe” conditions for constructors.

Lindberg responded in true defiant manner, insisting the IOC will look into safety and security for workers at the various sites dotted around the South Korean landscape, describing the loss of life for the two workers as "very tragic" when questioned about the deaths by insidethegames. 

One truck driver suffered a heart attack while helping to build the new high-speed rail link, which will cut journey times from capital city Seoul to Pyeongchang from around four hours to two hours. Another lost his life at an unspecified site when he fell to the ground when changing a container in a de-icing spraying machine.

The KFCITU had flagged serious safety concerns at some of the venues and claimed workers were suffering due to the intense pressure they were being put under to deliver the facilities on time, largely because of a hectic schedule of 28 test events, which began last month.

Constructors "had to work day and night to finish the construction in time", according to a statement from the Gangwon Province, and there are fears simply too much was asked of them.

When it comes to issues such as these, the Olympic Games themselves are as irrelevant as the probes from the South Korean media about business cards. Sport, after all, should not be a matter of life and death.