Every Olympic athlete will walk away with a spiffy new Samsung smartphone and some Nike gear—except for N. Korea's athletes, because sanctions. Sad.https://t.co/sYXbsVJhLh
The North Korean national flag (C) is hoisted at the athletes’ village for the PyeongChang Olympics in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, on Feb. 1, 2018. (Yonhap)
It is pretty amazing how Kim Jong-un has taken over the 2018 Winter Olympics. There is very little in the Korean media about South Korean athletes while the North Korean athletes are surrounded by media attention:
North Korean figure skater Ryom Tae-ok waves as she enters Gangneung Olympic Village in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, on Feb. 1, 2018, to get ready for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Ryom is one of 22 North Korean athletes set to participate in the competition. (Yonhap)
North Korean Olympic athletes checked in to their living quarters for the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Games amid tight security on Thursday.
Pyongyang’s vice sports minister Won Kil-u led a delegation of 32, including 10 athletes, to Gangneung, a sub-host city for all ice events during the Feb. 9-25 Olympic Games. They’d landed at Yangyang International Airport on a South Korean chartered plane earlier Thursday, and traveled about 50 kilometers south to reach Gangneung Olympic Village.
Gangneung’s village, built for those in ice sports, is one of two athletes’ residential areas for the Olympics. PyeongChang Olympic Village will house competitors in snow events.
The 10 athletes that arrived here Thursday are three alpine skiers, three cross-country skiers, two figure skaters and two short track speed skaters.
Ryom Tae-ok, a pairs figure skater, was the center of attention from the moment she appeared at the airport. The petite athlete, who turns 19 on Friday, was one of the few who showed any semblance of emotion, flashing a sheepish grin at cameras as flashbulbs exploded around her both at the airport and the village.
Asked to comment on her visit, Ryom simply said, “I don’t talk before competitions.”
This is how the Kim regime has made the South Korean government pay for their athletes’ travel to the Winter Olympics:
In this Joint Press Corps photo, South Korean skiers wave onboard a plane bound for North Korea on Jan. 31, 2018. (Yonhap)
Ten North Korean Olympic athletes will board a South Korean chartered airplane on Thursday when it carries a South Korean delegation home after two days of joint ski training in the North ahead of the PyeongChang Winter Games, according to South Korean pool reporters on Wednesday.
The South’s 45-member delegation, including two dozen skiers, arrived at the Masikryong Ski Resort in North Korea on the Asiana Airlines jet for the training session.
The aircraft will carry 32 North Koreans, including 10 athletes in the disciplines of alpine and cross-country skiing and figure and short-track skating, when it returns to South Korea on Thursday, officials from the unification ministry said.
A total of 22 North Koreans will compete at the Feb. 9-25 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Twelve ice hockey players have already come to the South.
Earlier in the day, the plane landed at Kalma Airport in the North’s eastern city of Wonsan about one hour after it left Yangyang International Airport in Gangwon Province, according to officials here. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the flight is in violation of sanctions on North Korea, but South Korea was able to get the Trump administration to agree to waive the sanctions as a special exemption.
This photo, taken on Jan. 29, 2018, shows an Olympic hospitality house for Switzerland being built at Yongpyong Resort in the northeastern alpine county of PyeongChang. Several nations participating in the Feb. 9-25 PyeongChang Winter Olympics will operate Olympic hospitality houses during the competition. Run by national Olympic committees or corporate sponsors, these hospitality houses will promote countries’ cultures and specialty foods. (Yonhap)
Via a reader tip comes this article about another free agent signing by South Korea for the upcoming Olympic Games. At least he earned his spot on the team and did not have it handed to him like the North Korean female ice hockey players:
In 2013-14, without much to lose, he signed with Anyang Halla, a team based about 12 miles south of Seoul, South Korea. He was driven to his apartment directly from the airport but couldn’t sleep because of jet lag. So he walked around the city and took it all in — the skyscrapers, the frantic bustling on the streets, the colorful billboards, all in a language he did not recognize. “What did I sign up for?” he wondered.
Five years later, Testwuide’s hockey career has been revived. He has rediscovered his passion for the game. He’s playing some of the best hockey of his life. In fact, Testwuide is getting ready to play on the world’s biggest stage, as an Olympian — and with a South Korean flag stitched to his jersey.
The tale of how a kid from Colorado became a South Korean citizen — with no connections or roots to the country — is quite remarkable. That Testwuide is preparing to be an Olympian is unfathomable, even to him. [ESPN]
You can read the rest at the link, but it is unclear from the article if he still has US citizenship or not. If he has dual citizenship then he gets the benefits of both playing in the Olympics and still being an American.
Via a reader tip comes this news that the Blue House would like everyone to show respect towards North Korea during the upcoming Winter Olympics:
A conservative activist sets fire to a picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the North’s flag in front of Seoul Station Monday in protest against the North’s participation in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
South Korea’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae called on the public Tuesday to show more respect to all countries that will participate in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games, including North Korea, one day after a group of conservative activists staged a violent protest against the communist state.
“North Korea too is a participating country and we ought to respect it as we would respect all the others,” a ranking Cheong Wa Dae official told Yonhap News Agency.
The official added that the presidential office was set to release an official commentary on the issue.
The move comes one day after the South Korean activist group staged a protest rally in front of Seoul train station as a visiting North Korean delegation arrived there following its overnight visit to Gangneung, 240 kilometers east of Seoul, to inspect possible venues for a musical performance before or during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. [Korea Times]
I would like to know what is there to respect about the Kim regime? Should Apartheid South Africa have been respected? As bad as Apartheid was it was nothing compared to human rights violations and threats to world peace posed by the Kim regime and they were banned from the Olympics.
ROK citizens should have the right to show their displeasure with the Kim regime. It will be interesting to see how the Moon administration tries to clamp down on protesters during the Winter Olympics.
The North Korean delegation is visiting the ROK to view locations where the Moranbong Band will perform and hopefully not sing about the greatness of the Kim regime:
Hyon Song-wol, head of a North Korean delegation, arrives at Seoul Station on Jan. 21, 2018. (Yonhap)
A North Korean delegation arrived in Gangnueng, an eastern South Korean city, Sunday to check the venues for its proposed art performances at next month’s PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
The trip came amid brisk inter-Korean contact on the North’s participation in the Olympic Games to open in three weeks.
The seven-member team is led by Hyon Song-wol, head of the North’s Samjiyon Orchestra, and known as one of the most influential women in the secretive communist nation.
She also serves as director of the Moranbong Band, the country’s well-known all-female musical group, reportedly created at the order of leader Kim Jong-un. There’s a rumor that she is an ex-girlfriend of Kim. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but a ROK delegation is supposed to go to North Korea and view the Mt. Geumgang Resort and ROK skiers are supposed to go train at the Masik Ski Resort. This is all clearly intended to be an opening effort to get the tours restarted at Mt. Geumgang which was once a cash cow for the regime until it was closed after a grandma was shot in the back and killed by a North Korean soldier.
Opening the tours again would also circumvent the United Nations sanctions on North Korea and encourage other governments to circumvent them as well. We will see what happens after the Winter Olympics is completed, but it seems to me it is pretty clear what the North Koreans hope to get out of their most recent charm offensive.
I think the critics are definitely right that the Kim regime has once again stolen the spotlight from South Korea:
An agreement between South and North Korea to march under a unity flag and field a joint ice hockey team at next month’s Olympics was met sharp criticism by many in the South on Thursday, highlighting changing attitudes toward the country’s northern neighbor. (…..)
“North Korea was all about firing missiles last year, but suddenly they want to come to the South for the Olympics? Who gets to decide that?” Kim Joo-hee, a translator, told Reuters during a coffee break on a chilly Seoul afternoon. “Does North Korea have so much privilege to do whatever they want?”
Moon’s office declined to comment beyond saying the two countries would be coordinating logistics for the Olympics, which begin on Feb. 9.
Opinion polls released since the plans became public have shown limited support for some of Seoul’s proposals.
Only 4 out of 10 respondents said they favor the plan to march together under a flag symbolizing a unified Korea, according to a survey released on Thursday by the South Korean pollster Realmeter.
Tens of thousands of people took to social media to vent their disgust after plans for the joint activities were announced on Wednesday, with one commenter saying the Korean peninsula flag is “not my [expletive] flag.”
Others complained that “the Pyeongchang Olympics have already become the Pyongyang Olympics.” [Christian Science Monitor]
This quote from a ROK Drop favorite Michael Breen is very true because once these Olympics are over and the Key Resolve exercise comes up we all know what will happen next:
“South Koreans feel sorry for the athletes who have trained so hard for the Olympics and are now being kicked out of the team to make way for North Koreans,” he said.
“They think there must be a better way, especially as a few months from now we all know we will be back to where we were with North Korea.”
