Twenty-three North Koreans arrived in the South via the Kaesong route. Among them were a 15-member delegation of 12 women’s ice hockey players with their coach Pak Chol-ho and two support staff, which swiftly left for the national training center in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province.

The athletes will enter practice sessions with their South Korean counterparts to form a unified women’s ice hockey team for the upcoming games.

The players met the South Korean team and coach Sarah Murray in Jincheon after arriving at the training center around 12:30 p.m. They were warmly greeted with a six-minute welcoming ceremony, where the South Korean athletes presented the North Korean players bouquets of flowers.

The North agreed to send 22 athletes to compete in women’s ice hockey, figure skating, short track speedskating, cross-country skiing and alpine skiing at the Feb. 9-25 Winter Games. The decision, approved by the International Olympics Committee, spawned out of a series of inter-Korean meetings held after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed willingness to dispatch a delegation to the Winter Games.

South Korea currently has 23 players on its entry, but Murray must now add at least three players from North Korea to her roster of 22 players -- 20 skaters and two goaltenders.

A separate eight-member delegation led by Yun Yong-bok, a senior official at the North’s Sports Ministry, will look into competition venues for the upcoming games throughout their three-day visit. Accommodation for the North Korean athletes, national Olympics committee, cheerleaders and taekwondo demonstration team will also be checked.

Athletes will stay at the athletes’ village in Gangneung, a South Korean representative at the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games said.
 

The advance team is expected to visit competition venues that are clustered in the areas of Gangwon Province’s Gangneung and PyeongChang.

Included as the main stops for Thursday were Gangneung ice arena, which will serve as a venue for figure skating events, and Kwandong Hockey Centre, where the unified hockey team will play.

On Friday, the delegation will relocate to PyeongChang where the ski slopes and main Olympic Stadium are located. Before wrapping-up on Saturday, they will head to Seoul to check a hotel and local broadcaster MBC’s headquarters in western Seoul for the North’s taekwondo demonstration performance.

Meanwhile, a South Korean advance team is set to return home from a three-day trip to North Korea. They inspected venues suggested for a joint cultural event and ski training such as Kumkangsan Resort and Masikryong Ski Resort.

The North Korean hockey team’s visit comes as South Korean society remains divided over the idea of a unified team. Critics say the South Korean team could be burdened by North Korean players and their chances of success have become slimmer.

According to a survey by Korea Research released Thursday 58.7 percent of the respondents disagreed with the idea of the unified team, citing “unfairness for South Korean national players who lost their spot at the games.” Those who agreed with the move came in at 37.7 percent, saying it could contribute to an improvement in inter-Korean ties.

In Jincheon, Pak said he was “quite pleased that North and South Korea have become one.” He added that no team wants to lose and that good results will come with teamwork and collaborative effort.

On a larger scale, the main opposition Liberty Korea Party criticized the liberal Moon administration as having allowed North Korea to steal the limelight at the upcoming PyeongChang Olympics by putting too much emphasis on the North’s participation.

“We cannot help but ask once again whether this is the PyeongChang Winter Olympics or the Pyongyang Olympics,” Rep. Kim Sung-tae, the party’s floor leader, said during a party meeting.

Thursday’s visit also comes as the United States reaffirmed its stance of sticking to further pressure in dealing with North Korea, by imposing a fresh round of sanctions against the rogue regime. The US Treasury has blacklisted nine entities, 16 people and six North Korean ships suspected of helping Pyongyang’s fast-growing nuclear weapons program.
 

North Korea conducted its largest nuclear test along with a series of ballistic missile provocations in 2017.

But the Moon administration is hoping that the North’s participation in PyeongChang paves the way on US-North Korea dialogue for denuclearization.

On Thursday, North Korea sent a rare announcement addressed to “all Koreans at home and abroad,” saying they should make a “breakthrough” for unification without the help of other countries, via its state media.

Some US officials have expressed worries the North may be trying to drive a wedge in the South Korea-US alliance by making a rare gesture of friendliness. 

By Jung Min-kyung & Joint Press Corp (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)