VAL D'ISERE, France (AP) — The skiing resort of Val d’Isère in the French Alps took a big step Monday toward hosting events at the 2030 Winter Olympics which France will organize.
Through a vote of its municipal council, Val d’Isère expressed its desire to be included in the preferred framework outlining the map of venues for the French Alps Games.
The resort, which is a traditional stop on the World Cup circuit, is seeking to host the women’s and men’s technical alpine skiing events on the Face de Bellevarde slope.
“Val d’Isère is a land of Olympic history, performance and innovation," Mayor Patrick Martin said. “By voting this principle-based support, elected officials clearly affirm our determination to be part of the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
The 2030 French Alps Olympics must tie together snow and sliding venues in the mountains with skating and curling arenas among the palm trees on the Riviera coastal city Nice. A definitive map of the sites is expected to be decided by the end of June.
The project is led by Edgar Grospiron, a freestyle skiing gold medalist in 1992 when France last hosted the Winter Games. French organizers are expected to deliver an update on their hosting plans on Tuesday during a session of the International Olympic Committee ahead of the Milan Cortina Olympics starting later this week.
Grospiron welcomed the vote as “excellent news."
“Val d’Isère — a legendary stop on the Alpine Ski World Cup circuit with the Critérium de la Première Neige, and host of the Olympic Games in 1992 and the World Championships in 2009 — is part of the international history of skiing," he said. “And this great story will continue.”
More coverage of the Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
FILE - A view of the Bellevarde course, at the World Alpine Ski Championships in Val d'Isere, France, on Feb, 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, File)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Koreans celebrated on Monday as the song “Golden” claimed K-pop’s first Grammy Award, a milestone that critics say highlights the genre’s global appeal and signals broader acceptance in the American mainstream.
The Grammy win for “Golden” — from the Netflix animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” — which also contended for song of the year, could help strengthen K-pop’s U.S. foothold and boost the genre’s prospects at future awards, music critic Lim Hee-yun said.
The win for best song for visual media capped a highly visible night for K-pop at the Grammys — an institution where the genre has long been undercelebrated despite its massive international following.
Rosé of the juggernaut girl group Blackpink joined Grammy favorite Bruno Mars on stage to belt out their megahit “APT.,” which was a song of the year nominee. The girl group Katseye, created by a partnership between South Korea’s HYBE and U.S. label Geffen Records, earned two nominations, including best new artist, for their song “Gabriela.”
The awards captured a moment in which K-pop is surging as a youth-driven global phenomenon and increasingly attracting interest from the U.S. film and music industries.
American legacy studios, struggling to reach younger audiences, have taken note of K-pop’s viral strength on social media and short-form platforms — a momentum that has driven collaborations such as Rosé and Bruno Mars and projects like Katseye and “KPop Demon Hunters,” according to Lim Hee-yun.
There is debate over whether “Golden,” an English-language pop song from a Sony Pictures Animation film, qualifies as K-pop. Still, the Grammy award sparked joy in South Korea, where the film inspired Demon Hunters-themed ramen and boosted tourism to Seoul’s old fortress walls and other cultural sites featured in the film.
“It feels unreal,” said Kim Na-young, a 50-year-old who said she saw the movie at least five times. “Sony made it, Netflix released it, but the film was definitely about Korea.”
“KPop Demon Hunters” follows the three members of the fictional Korean girl group HUNTR/X as they use their music and martial arts skills to keep demons out of the human world.
The film went on to become Netflix’s most popular release of all time, with songs like “Golden” and “Soda Pop” climbing global music charts and its characters becoming popular Halloween costume choices in the United States. The singers behind HUNTR/X — Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami — gained huge followings.
After winning their award at the Grammys’ Premiere Ceremony, the songwriters of “Golden” delivered their acceptance speech in both English and Korean, highlighting its bilingual appeal.
“This is just crazy because this is like a historical moment for you know, as being a Korean American,” said Ejae, who co-wrote and provided the lead vocals for the song. “It’s a song that also represents Korea.”
Some South Koreans saw the Grammy win as the latest significant moment marking the rise of South Korean pop culture, following the 2020 Oscar triumph of Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite.”
“When Parasite won, it felt like South Korean culture had entered the global mainstream. The Grammy win takes that recognition even further,” said Park Jeong-eon, 48, recalling trips abroad in the 2000s when she felt that South Korea was little known.
Seo Ga-yeon, who studies K-pop at a university, said she could emotionally relate with the personal story of Ejae, who struggled as a young K-pop trainee in South Korea before establishing herself as an artist in the United States.
“I think it was above all her outstanding vocal performance — overflowing with emotion, as if she was singing about her own life, almost like a cry — that made ‘Golden’ a success,” Seo said.
South Korea’s governing Democratic Party said the Grammy win was a historically significant moment in which K-pop “finally overcame the long-standing Grammy barrier.”
The Recording Academy had long overlooked major K-pop acts like BTS. Some analysts question whether “Golden” should truly be considered K-pop’s first Grammy win.
“The film, of course, used K-pop as material and helped bring it global attention, but I feel there’s a distance between ‘Golden’ and K-pop,” said Jinmo Lim, another music critic, who described the Grammy win as recognition of K-pop’s growing international appeal rather than a victory for the genre itself.
Lim Hee-yun said “Golden” sounds more like American pop — “Katy Perry or early Lady Gaga” — than a typical K-pop idol track, which may have helped it reach a broader audience. While K-pop groups usually have four or more members who rotate vocal parts to engage fans, “Golden” is carried almost entirely by a single lead vocalist.
Group composition, precision in style and choreography, and passionate — almost religious — fan bases are key elements that define K-pop, he said, though the genre has become increasingly difficult to pin down musically.
“For people who knew little about K-pop, or had only heard of BTS or Blackpink, ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ certainly boosted awareness of the K-pop world and even sparked interest in traveling to South Korea,” Lim Hee-yun said. “K-pop groups are likely to receive far more attention in the future than they would have without the film.”
The team from "KPop Demon Hunters" pose in the press room with the award for best song written for visual media for "Golden" during the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
The team from KPop Demon Hunters accept the award for best song written for visual media for "Golden" during the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
The team from "KPop Demon Hunters" pose in the press room with the award for best song written for visual media for "Golden" during the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
