PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The 23rd Winter Olympics are set to open in PyeongChang Friday night, amid chilly weather but warming relations between North and South Korea.
Almost 3,000 athletes from 93 countries will compete in 102 medal events across 15 sports in the Games, which will continue through Feb. 25.
The South Korean hosts have a dazzling display planned for the Opening Ceremonies, which is titled “Peace in Motion” and begins at 8 p.m. local time (6 a.m. EST.)
But they also hope to broker some peace behind the scenes, with Vice President Pence and a delegation of senior North Korean officials attending a VIP reception before the Opening Ceremonies, and then the ceremony itself.
It is not clear if Pence will meet Kim Yong Nam, North Korea’s constitutional head of state, and Kim Yo Jong, the leader’s sister, even briefly. When asked about the possibility, the vice president has said “we’ll see what happens.”
But South Korean media reported that President Moon Jae-in lobbied Pence at their dinner Thursday night to agree to a “brush past” with the North Koreans.
The North Koreans will be sitting next to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at the opening.
Both Pence and the North Koreans will remain in South Korea Saturday, when Kim Yong Nam and Kim Yo Jong are due to have lunch with Moon.
The outreach is part of an effort to use the Games, which are taking place just 50 miles from the border with North Korea, to promote peace on the peninsula.
Athletes from the two Koreas will march into the Opening Ceremonies together on Friday night, walking under the blue and white “unification flag” which shows the peninsula as one. They will then field a unified women’s hockey team on Saturday, playing in blue jerseys with a simple “Korea” on them.
But there was bad news for Russian athletes just hours before the opening of the games. The Court of Arbitration for Sport denied a last-minute appeals filed by 45 Russian athletes who were hoping for an 11th hour invitation to the Games.
Spectacle of the opening ceremony
Although some events have already begun, the Olympics will officially open at 8 p.m. local time with a ceremony including Korean cultural performances in addition to the standard lighting of the Olympic cauldron and fireworks.
The ceremony will take place inside a 35,000-seat, pentagon-shaped stadium that has been built especially for the Games. But the stadium has no roof and this part of South Korea is known for its wind — so much so that it’s the place where pollock fish, a local delicacy, is hung out on lines here to dry in the freezing gusts.
The weather is forecast to be between 28 degrees (-2C) and 23 degrees Fahrenheit (-5C) for the opening ceremony.
As the Games neared and the temperatures plunged, organizers have scrambled to deal with the cold. Those attending the opening ceremony will be given packs containing hot-packs for feet and hands, heated seat cushions, a blanket and a hat.
The South Korean organizers have also built shelters around the Games venues to provide some respite from the cold.
The organizers have had to deal with another unwelcome problem: an outbreak of Norovirus. The number of people infected with the contagious vomiting and diarrhea bug had risen to 128 at latest count, with cases reported at three separate sites.
Health authorities have quarantined security staff at the site where the virus began, and soldiers have been deployed to fill in. They are conducting emergency inspections to try to isolate the cause of the outbreak.
But there is one aspect where health officials were very prepared. About 110,000 condoms — a Winter Olympic record — are being distributed to athletes in PyeongChang. That works out at about 37 condoms per athlete.
Delicate diplomacy
Pence will be representing the United States at the opening ceremony, accompanied by Fred Warmbier, the father of the University of Virginia student who was died after being returned from 17 months’ detention in North Korea in a coma and with severe brain damage.
They visited the memorial to the 46 sailors who died on when the Cheonan, a South Korean naval corvette, was sunk by a North Korean torpedo in 2010, and heard from North Korean defectors.
Pence has said he doesn’t want North Korea to be able to “hijack” the Olympics with its propaganda.
The vice president has also brought with him General James Thurman, a former commander of the United States Forces in Korea and someone rumored to be in consideration to be nominated as ambassador to South Korea.
For its part, North Korea has put together a huge delegation to the Olympics in just a matter of weeks.
It includes 22 athletes, 21 reporters, and 229 members of a “cheering squad.” A 140-member orchestra played in a concert hall near the ice skating and hockey venues Thursday night, performing crowd-pleasing South Korean pop songs from the 1980s as well as some inoffensive North Korean songs about loneliness and separation.
But the big political deal happened on Friday afternoon, when Kim Jong Un’s sister and close adviser, Kim Yo Jong, arrived at Seoul’s main airport on a private jet. After meeting with officials from South Korea’s Unification Ministry at their airport, the delegation boarded the brand-new high speed train to bring them to PyeongChang.
Also in the delegation is Choe Hwi, a senior official who is blacklisted by the U.N. Seoul had to seek a special exemption from the U.N. for Choe to be allowed to spend three days in South Korea.
Choe and Kim Yo Jong are both under direct American sanctions for human rights abuses related to their roles in censoring information in North Korea.
Read more
Full Olympic coverage from The Washington Post
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