

The two nations paraded together at the opening ceremony as a unified Korea, and fielded a unified team (COR) in the women's ice hockey. North Korea agreed to participate in the Games in spite of tense relations with South Korea. A total of 2,914 athletes from 93 teams competed, with the national debuts of Ecuador, Eritrea, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nigeria and Singapore.Īfter a state-sponsored doping program was exposed following the 2014 Winter Olympics, the Russian Olympic Committee was suspended, but selected athletes were allowed to compete neutrally under the special IOC designation of " Olympic Athletes from Russia" (OAR), provided they could meet certain anti-doping requirements. This is the first edition in Winter Olympic Games history to feature more than 100 medal events, four of which made their Olympic debut in 2018: "big air" snowboarding, mass start speed skating, mixed doubles curling, and mixed team alpine skiing. The 2018 Games featured 102 events over 15 disciplines, a record number of events for the Winter Games.

It was also the first Winter Olympics held in mainland Asia, and the first of three consecutive Olympic Games held in East Asia, preceding the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in China. The 2018 Games marked the third time that an Asian country had hosted the Winter Olympics, after Sapporo 1972 and Nagano 1998, both in Japan. This marked the second time that South Korea had hosted the Olympic Games (having previously hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul), as well as the first time it hosted the Winter Olympics. Pyeongchang was elected as the host city for the 2018 Winter Games at the 123rd IOC Session in Durban, South Africa in July 2011. The 2018 Winter Olympics ( Korean: 2018년 동계 올림픽, romanized: Icheon sip-pal nyeon Donggye Ollimpik), officially the XXIII Olympic Winter Games ( French: Les XXIII es Jeux olympiques d'hiver Korean: 제23회 동계 올림픽, romanized: Jeisipsamhoe Donggye Ollimpik) and also known as PyeongChang 2018 ( Korean: 평창2018, romanized: Pyeongchang Icheon sip-pal), were an international winter multi-sport event held between 9 and 25 February 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, with the opening rounds for certain events held on 8 February, a day before the opening ceremony.
