South and North Korean athletes unite during opening ceremony in Pyeongchang

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Hosts South Korea produced a show of unity with neighbour North Korea during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Their athletes entered under the same flag during the parade after months of tension on the Korean peninsula.
“We are stronger than all the forces that want to divide us,” declared Olympic president Thomas Bach.
Lizzy Yarnold carried Great Britain’s flag, while Russian athletes came in under the neutral Olympic flag.
Russia is banned from the Games, and the forthcoming Paralympics as a consequence of the 2016 McLaren report which claimed more than 1,000 of the country’s sportspeople benefitted from state-sponsored doping.
The International Olympic Committee invited 169 Russians who have met the anti-doping criteria to compete as independent athletes and their team will be known as the ‘Olympic Athletes from Russia’.
North Korea ice hockey player Chung Gum Hwang and South Korean bobsledder Won Yun-jong were joint flagbearers.
An estimated 35,000 spectators inside the Olympic Stadium were given seat warmers, windshields, hats and gloves with temperatures as low as -6C during the two-hour-long ceremony. (BBCSport)
 

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