WI-FI SYSTEMS HAVE AN OUTAGE BEFORE OPENING CEREMONY

Olympic organizers are investigating a possible attack on their internet and WiFi systems about 45 minutes before the opening ceremony.

Organizing committee spokeswoman Nancy Park said the defense ministry and a cybersecurity team are investigating the outage. She said the outage didn’t affect Friday’s opening ceremony or any competitions.

She said systems were almost back to normal about 15 hours after the problems were discovered.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported servers were shut down to prevent damage to technical systems, causing problems with the PyeongChang Olympic website.

Park declined to call it a cyberattack and said they don’t want to speculate since they’re still trying to identify where it came from.

Siblings get nod over champs.

The U.S. will send out siblings Maia and Alex Shibutani in the ice dance and Bradie Tennell in the women’s short program when the team competition resumes Sunday at Gangneung Ice Arena.

The Americans, who are second behind Canada after the pairs and men’s short programs, waited until the last possible moment to announce their lineup in a bit of gamesmanship.

The Shibutanis were chosen over U.S. champs Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue and the team of Madison Chock and Evan Bates. Tennell got the nod over Mirai Nagasu and Karen Chen.

The top five nations after their short programs advance to the free skate later Sunday.

Virus still spreading.

Another 11 people have been diagnosed with norovirus, a common, infectious bug that causes unpleasant symptoms including diarrhea and vomiting but doesn’t require medical treatment. That brings the total to 139 since Feb. 1. Seven of the new cases are at a youth training center where security personnel for the Games have been staying.

Most of the norovirus cases were in people staying at the center, and about 1,200 were sequestered there, forcing the military to step in to help with security. Those who have tested negative for norovirus have been released from quarantine and returned to work.

Team Korea plays in women’s hockey.

The first medals of the PyeongChang Olympics will be awarded Saturday, but most attention will be focused on a preliminary-round hockey match featuring the combined Korean women’s hockey team.

The game against Switzerland is sold out, and there are rumors that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister might attend. Fierce attention has been focused on the team since North Koreans were added to the roster just a few weeks ago.

The U.S. and Finland women’s hockey teams also play Saturday.

Medals are due to be awarded in women’s biathlon and cross country skiing, men’s ski jumping, women’s 3,000-meter speedskating and men’s 1,500-meter short-track speedskating.

Hoping to end drought.

It’s been 42 years since the United States won a medal in cross country skiing. Andy Newell believes that is about to end.

The four-time Olympian sprint specialist said he is so confident in how far the Americans have come in cross country, it would “disappointing” if they don’t come home with any hardware from the PyeongChang Games in South Korea.

“We’re at a point where we can say that now,” Newell said.

The Americans have been little more than participants since Bill Koch won a silver in 1976 at Innsbruck.

The 100,000th man.

Making his Olympic debut at age 19, American ski jumper Casey Larson became the 100,000th man to compete at the Olympics, according to historian Bill Mallon.

Mallon, a former professional golfer and a leading authority on the history of the Olympics, calculated that Larson reached the historic milestone by competing in Thursday’s qualifying.