North Korean Olympic ice hockey players arrive in South

SEOUL, South Korea – The North Korean women’s ice hockey players who will form a unified Korean team at the Winter Olympics arrived in South Korea on Thursday, January 25, to start training with their new team-mates.

The skaters, wearing North Korean team tracksuits, crossed the land border by road near Kaesong, Seoul’s unification ministry said.

They accompanied a sports delegation from Pyongyang who will prepare for the arrival of its other athletes for next month’s Games in Pyeongchang, east of Seoul.

The North is contributing 12 players to the unified ice hockey squad, in addition to the original 23 South Korean skaters, the two Koreas and the International Olympic Committee agreed at the weekend.

The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics have triggered an apparent rapprochement on the divided peninsula, where tensions have been high over the nuclear-armed North’s weapons ambitions. 

But the unified team has provoked controversy in the South, with accusations that Seoul is depriving some of its own players of the chance to compete at the Olympics for political purposes.

Concerns have also been expressed that the sudden addition of so many players so close to the competition – for which South Korea qualified as hosts, rather than on merit – will disrupt team chemistry.

Pyongyang will have another 10 athletes taking part in the Games: three cross-country skiers, three alpine skiers, two short-track speed skaters and two pairs figure skaters.

The figure skaters, Ryom Tae-ok and Kim Ju-sik, are the only North Korean athletes to have met the Winter Olympics qualifying standards. – Rappler.com