PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — This sleepy rural region in South Korea is preparing to roar to life Friday night for the Winter Olympics' opening ceremony — a celebration intended to dazzle dignitaries, athletes and sports fans amid an urgent message of peace.
The open-roof Olympic Stadium will host some 35,000 spectators who will have to watch the pageantry unfold in near-freezing conditions in what may be the coldest opening ceremony in 24 years.
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The tense buildup to these 23rd Olympic Winter Games after months of escalating tension over the Korean Peninsula has temporarily subsided to allow both North and South Korean athletes to march, and for the first time, compete together under a unified flag.
Still, the eyes of the world won't only be watching the parade of nations once the ceremony gets underway at 6 a.m. ET: The United States has sent a delegation to be led by Vice President Mike Pence, while North Korea has dispatched the sister of authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un, along with his nominal head of state, to represent the nation.
The South Korean government has been forced into a delicate position not to offend either VIP camp, both of which would expect to be seated at the opening ceremony near the nation's president, Moon Jae-in. Just how the seating arrangements will play out wasn't immediately clear.
But the idea that these games — the first in South Korea since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul — could bring goodwill and put the rival nations on a possible path to nuclear disarmament hasn't been overlooked by locals and visitors. PyeongChang is just 50 miles from the North Korean border.
"It's really hard to get the North and the South to get together. A lot of South Koreans are very happy they're getting together," said Young Hwang, a 51-year-old worker in Seoul, from inside the Gangneung Ice Arena.
Security has been tight at these games, with roadblocks and checkpoints set up around each venue.
The opening ceremony will feature 2,900 athletes from about 90 nations. Erin Hamlin, who is competing in women's luge, was selected as the U.S. flag bearer. While competition had begun earlier in sports such as curling and figure skating, the first medal events are set to take place Saturday.
Marquee American names include skiiers Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, snowboarders Shaun White and Chloe Kim, and figure skater Nathan Chen.
Pence, before arriving to South Korea, urged not to let the North Korean regime steal the spotlight of these games for its own propagandist purposes.
Moon, meanwhile, said he will dine with Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo Jong, and other senior North Korean officials while they are in the country — marking the highest level inter-Korean contact in more than a decade. The two nations technically remain at war.
Aside from North Korea, there was plenty of other drama before these games began, including whether Team Russia would be allowed to compete after the state-backed doping scandal that roiled the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Just nine hours before the opening ceremony, sports' highest court rejected appeals by 45 Russian athletes and two coaches who were banned from the games. Only certain Russian athletes not tainted by the allegations were invited to compete under a neutral Olympic flag in PyeongChang.
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During these games, which lasts through Feb. 25, Olympic organizers have been scrambling to contain an outbreak of the norovirus, of which there have been nearly 130 confirmed cases and the forced quarantine of about 1,200 staff who are being tested for the nasty stomach bug.
Officials have also warned that the PyeongChang games could be dangerously cold, and wind gusts of up to 35 mph are also threatening to postpone some of the downhill ski events this weekend.
But these games, which are expected to cost about $13 billion for South Korea to host, are a coming-out party for this region of the country — once a home to potato fields and now looking to transform itself into a premier international winter sports destination.
Ryan Dunbar, a 34-year-old security consultant from New York, said he came to the Olympics excited that it's one of the largest cultural events in the world. He couldn't miss this.
"It should be a bucket list thing for people," he said.
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