Olympia 2018: North Korean Shorttracker without a chance

North Korea’s Olympic comeback didn’t even last for two and a half minutes: Shorttracker Choe Un Song dropped out of the race, as expected, more than 1500 m above sea level.

The 25-year-old finished sixth out of seven starters and clearly missed out on qualifying for the semi-finals. The cheered winner of the race was South Korea’s top favourite Hwang Dae Heon, followed by the Dutchman Itzhak de Laat and Wu Dajing from China.

The loud support of the cheerleaders from Pyongyang from the north didn’t help either. The girls’ squad waved North Korean flags during the race, later on the flags of the unified Korean team.

Wildcard runner Choe Un Song went into the first corner as the leader, but in the following time he was pushed backwards and had a lot of trouble to keep the pace until the end.

Maybe the freaky opening show had gotten him off the hook, too. Two South Korean rappers made with shrill tunes in the 11,000 spectators almost sold out arena.