Seoul: Ten North Korean skiers and skaters arrived in here Thursday in the South today to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Games, setting the stage for a ‘peace Olympics’ after a year of high tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
Eight days before the opening ceremony, the athletes were among a delegation that landed in Gangneung, on South Korea’s east coast, after a rare direct flight between the two halves of the divided peninsula – for which a special exemption had to be sought from US sanctions.
In black fur hats, they made their way through the terminal without saying a word to a pursuing pack of reporters and boarded buses that took them to the athletes’ village.
Well-wishers at the airport held up banners depicting reunification flags – a blue Korean peninsula on a white background – with one proclaiming: ‘We are one’.
Thursday’s arrivals – three cross-country skiers, three alpine skiers, two short-track speed skaters and two figure skaters – will compete for the North.
Until it agreed to take part, the security threat from the North raised fears for athlete safety among some countries, and ticket sales have been slow.
As of Wednesday 7,99,000 out of 1.18 million tickets available had been sold, or 68 per cent, with chief organiser Lee Hee-Beom admitting: “We have many expensive tickets left, so we need some emergency measures to boost ticket sales.
Free condoms set new record
Seoul: This month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea will set a record even before the first athlete comes out of a starting gate, organisers said Thursday – for the largest number of free condoms handed out at a Winter Games. A total of 110,000 contraceptive sheaths will be distributed, 10,000 more than at Vancouver in 2010 or Sochi in 2014. With 2,925 athletes taking part, it equates to an average of 37.6 condoms per sportsman and sportswoman.
agence France-Presse