N. Korea Olympic skaters begin training in South, 1 injured

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — North Korean skaters attending this month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea began their training Friday, and one was injured during his first practice. A giant North Korean flag hanging from a North Korean apartment in the athletes’ village also captured the media spotlight.

Short-track speed skater Choe Un Song fell and slid into a padded wall during his practice at the Gangneung Ice Arena with his teammate Jong Kwang Bom. Players from Italy and France skated with the North Koreans, but there was little interaction between them.

A pair of North Korean figure skaters also practiced at the arena earlier Friday.

They are among 10 North Korean athletes who arrived Thursday evening in the second and final group of a total of 22 athletes from North Korea who will attend the Winter Games. The other 12 athletes, all female hockey players, came to South Korea last week to practice with South Korean teammates with whom they have formed the first-ever joint Korean team in the Olympics.

The Koreas are in a rare Olympics-inspired reconciliation mood after a year of heightened animosities over North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile programs. They agreed to march together in the Feb. 9 opening ceremony and on North Korea sending a 230member cheering group and a 140-person art troupe to the South during the games.

On Thursday, a massive North Korean flag hung across three floors of the North Korean delegation’s apartments at the Gangneung athletes’ village. Many other national flags were also displayed on the balconies of their athletes’ rooms, but South Korean media reported that the North’s flag was the largest.

Displaying a North Korean national flag in a public place is normally prohibited in South Korea under its strict anti-North Korean security law. AP