North and South Korean Teams to March as One at Olympics
The Games will begin on Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang, South Korea,
and the women’s ice-hockey squad will be the first combined Korean team for the Olympics, and the first unified team since their athletes played together for an international table-tennis championship and a youth soccer tournament in 1991.
HONG KONG — North and South Korea agreed on Wednesday to march their athletes together under one flag at
the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics next month and to field a joint women’s ice hockey team.
North Korea has agreed to send athletes to the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea,
but the Olympics have long been a window into geopolitics between the two sides.
The North will send 230 supporters to the Games, and negotiators agreed
that supporters of both Koreas would root together for athletes from both countries.
But the joint news statement said that the final number would be determined in Switzerland on Saturday,
when the International Olympic Committee is to bring together North and South Korean officials.