Pyeongchang, South Korea • Everyone has been worried for months about what might happen during these Winter Games. On Friday night inside the Olympic Stadium, South Korea finally let out a Psy.
Oppa Pyeongchang style.
Mixing a divided nation’s culture, symbols of peace and, yes, plenty of thumping K-pop beats (including Korean singer Psy’s megahit “Gangnam Style”), this country formally welcomed the world to the 2018 Winter Olympics, kicking off the next three weeks of competition here.
The night started with a quiet handshake between South Korean President Moon Jae-In and Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Then came a flash of fireworks — red, orange and yellow — all around the 35,000-seat stadium. The night ended with two members of Korea’s unified women’s hockey team passing the torch to champion figure skater Yuna Kim to light the Olympic flame in the mountains east of Seoul.
In between, a quartet of Korean singers asked the world to “imagine” and a Tongan flag bearer left little to the imagination.
Former Utah Valley University sprinter Akwasi Frimpong waved the flag of Ghana proudly and danced. In a few days, he will become the first man to ever race in skeleton for the African nation.
U.S. luger Erin Hamlin, a four-time Olympian, was all smiles as she marched out front with the American flag, despite the frustrations of speedskating legend Shani Davis, who took to Twitter on Thursday to express his displeasure over not being chosen as the United States’ flag bearer.
Two-time gold medalist snowboard megastar Shaun White showcased his spirit near the back of the massive American contingent, hopping up and down as the K-pop hit blared again and again inside the stadium.
Vice President Mike Pence smiled and waved. So did the openly gay, gold-medal-winning skier Gus Kenworthy. Though probably not to each other.
“This is the moment you all have been waiting for,” International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach told the crowd. “The first Olympic Games on snow and ice in the Republic of Korea.”
Bach went out of his way early in his speech to address the importance of Olympic purity just hours after 47 Russian athletes and coaches had their Olympic bans upheld stemming from fallout of the extensive doping scandal.
(Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fireworks explode during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony at Olympic Stadium Friday, Feb. 9, 2018.
Missing from the Opening Ceremony was the usual sea of red and blue. Instead, the “Olympic Athletes of Russia,” those still allowed to contend for medals in the next two weeks, marched in dull gray and white uniforms. They’re here competing under the Olympic flag.
“You can only really enjoy your Olympic performance if you respect the rules and stay clean,” Bach said. “Only then will your life in memories be the memories of a true and worthy Olympian.”
The cold in the mountains of Pyeongchang didn’t seem to dampen the spirits of the athletes, while the crowd was somewhat subdued at times all layered-up and bundled tight. It certainly didn’t stop the three competitors from Bermuda from wearing shorts, or Tonga’s Pita Taufatofua from reprising the look that made him a viral sensation at the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Rio Games.
Yup.
Taufatofua, who will compete here as a cross-country skier after debuting in taekwondo in Rio, was again all oiled up and shirtless — only this time in the freezing temperatures that dipped into the low 20s with the wind chill.
“Over the next days, the world will be looking to you for inspiration,” Bach said, addressing the athletes in the stadium. “You will inspire us all to live together in peace and harmony, despite all the differences we have.”
The last team to circle the stadium was quite possibly the most significant for these Games. Dressed in white parkas and waving Korean Unification flags representing a nonexistent country banded together for the next few weeks, athletes from North and South Korea closed out the Parade of Nations by marching together.
“We all join and support you in your message of peace,” Bach said. “United in our diversity, we are stronger than all the forces that want to divide us.”
Seated in two separate groups high in the stadium and flanking the Olympic flame, North Korea’s “Army of Beauties” was heard chanting joyously in rhythm constantly throughout the evening. More than 200 of the North Korean cheerleaders reportedly are handpicked by Kim Jong Un himself.
They twirled their white unification flags in unison in the frigid Korean night, perhaps loudest when this unified Korea took its long-awaited lap with the eyes of the globe fixated.
And for one frigid February night, there were no politically charged tweets or mentions of buttons, no mockery or supposed superiority.
Yet unlike the biting cold here, it’s a feeling that remains fleeting.
