North Korea's 'army of beauties' makes Olympics debut with united Korea flags at speedskating
With the pomp of Friday’s Opening Ceremony behind us, we have our first full slate of Olympic competition on Saturday.
Short track speedskating made its PyeongChang debut early in the day with qualifying heats for several events.
Maybe more notable, though, is the competition debut of another team. A swath of North Korea cheerleaders, a group of 230 women sent from North Korea dubbed its “army of beauties,” was sitting in the stands and garnering a lot of attention. The women are reportedly selected by strict beauty standards set by leader Kim Jong Un, who married one of its former members.
this is so satisfying to watch pic.twitter.com/7WizNqlNlV
— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 10, 2018
Aside from the precision of their flag-waving, note the flags themselves. Those are the flags of united Korea that athletes from North Korea and South Korea marched under during Friday’s Opening Ceremony. While two of the North Korean delegation of 22 athletes are short track speedskaters, the sport is a traditional strength of host South Korea.
Whatever its true intentions, the normally adversarial North Korea’s propaganda campaign to present some sort of detente with its neighbors to the South is on full display.
Update:
They sing.
When you sit next to #NorthKorea’s cheering squad at speedskating.#PyeongChang2018 #olympics @NBCOlympics pic.twitter.com/e3TRP7NYiL
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) February 10, 2018
More Olympic coverage from Yahoo Sports:
• South Korean short track relay team falls … and still sets world record
• Five things to know about short track speed skating
• Passan: Meet the 6-7 ski-racing monster chasing a medal
• Was Olympic Opening Ceremony hacked by North Korea?
• Rippon’s agent claims Pence asked for sitdown; Pence refutes
