North and South Korea to March Together at Winter Olympics

North and South Korea agreed Wednesday (January 17th) to march together under the Korean unification flag during the Opening Ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, which will begin February 9th.

The two nations recently resumed diplomacy and began talks of North Korean participation in the Winter Games following a halt in military exercises agreed upon by U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Though temporary, the United States and South Korea have agreed not to conduct military drills until after the Games have concluded.

Initially, the talks began through a “hotline” used to communicate across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which separates the two nations near 38th Parallel. Fast-forward only a couple of weeks and each nation has agreed to participate in face-to-face arbitral discussions hosted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

This Saturday, January 20th, delegates from the National Olympic Committees (NOC) of the both North and South Korea will convene in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the IOC headquarters, where they will meet with delegates from the 2018 PyeongChang Organizing Committee and IOC Executive Board Members Gian-Franco Kasper, President of the Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF), and Gunilla Lindberg, Chair of the Coordination Commission PyeongChang 2018.

North Korean athletes will have to be given special permission by the IOC in order to compete at the Games next month, as all deadlines for entry have expired. The IOC must then also decide on an official protocol regarding the North Korean flag, anthem, and uniforms.

North and South Korean athletes have marched together under the Korean unification flag in past Games, yet competed separately for their respective NOCs. This first took place at the 2000 Sydney Summer Games and was repeated at the 2004 Athens Summer Games and 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy. Though North Korea has attended every Summer Olympics since 1972 with the exceptions of Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988, North Korea’s most recent Winter Olympics appearance came in 2010 in Vancouver, where the small delegation marched separately under its own flag.

This year, Korean unification could go a step further with the creation of a joint women’s ice hockey team, an idea suggested by the South Korean government. The proposed joint team is controversial because including North Korean players on the South Korean roster would mean some South Korean players would get dropped, and because team chemistry could be thrown off balance. The joint team will also require IOC approval and could influence the flag and anthem decisions the IOC must already make regarding North Korea.

Given the political tensions surrounding North Korea and the rest of the world, particularly South Korea, Japan, and the United States, it is nearly certain the IOC will do whatever it can to include North Korea in next month’s Olympic Games. The IOC will likely also emphasize Korean unification as opposed to simply adding the North Korean delegation to the mix. Though nuclear de-escalation is off the table, the Olympic olive branch is a potential indicator of a more stable Korean Peninsula in the future.

Though North Korea has not won a medal at a Winter Olympics since 1992, the small and isolated nation has proven to have a formidable diving program. North Korean diver Kim Kuk-hyang became women’s world champion on the 10-meter platform at the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan, but then placed 25th at the 2016 Rio Olympics. In 2017 Kim Kuk-hyang and synchro partner Kim Mi-rae won the silver medal in the women’s 10-meter platform synchronized competition at the FINA World Championships in Budapest. A few weeks later Kim Kuk-hyang captured gold on the 10-meter platform at the Summer Universiade in Taipei and was joined on the podium by teammate Kim Un-hyang who took the bronze.

While still in Budapest, 16-year-old Kim Mi-rae, after already picking up a silver medal in the all-female 10-meter synchro competition, captured the bronze medal in the 10-meter mixed synchronized competition alongside male counterpart Hyon Il-myong. All together, North Korea out-performed the United States in diving at both the 2015 and 2017 FINA World Championships.